


The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

by roadtripwithlucifer



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Denial of Feelings, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Memory Loss, Oral Sex, References to Depression, Starting Over, Top Jensen, religion-based homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21703348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadtripwithlucifer/pseuds/roadtripwithlucifer
Summary: "The hairs on the back of Jared’s neck stand up and he pulls away from Jensen, knees apart and readjusts his shoulders, making it appear that he was getting more comfortable in the chair.I’ve been here before. I’ve done this before.Deja-vu crashed into Jared, knocking the wind out of him. Jen.Jen.He could swear he’s never called anyone that, never heard anyone call Jensen that. But it came, so sweet, so intimate into his mind like that name was tattooed on the most primal parts of his brain.Jared clears his throat and nods absently. Jensen pauses, looks him up and down and reaches out a hand as if to place to his shoulder, but something prevents him from reaching out all the way. Jensen places his phone back in his pocket, wraps both hands around the bottle of his beer, and leans back. "Set post-season 3 of Supernatural. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While having seen the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't required, it will make this story easier to understand!
> 
> I've been working on this on and off for almost 5 years - it means something completely different now than it did then. And part of growing up was learning when to let go - and stop trying to make this 'perfect.' And while I'm not involved with the fandom anymore, I loved writing this story - and I hope you enjoy reading it!

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

-Alexander Pope

* * *

The water laps his chin before he stops himself. Electricity shoots through his bare back, as if the last neuron, the self-protecting one that Jared always relied on, finally woke up out of its humid, salty sleep, and reminded Jared that, wait, _fuck_.

Sadie and Harley are on the shore. Moments before, they were eagerly running into the cool waters, prancing and kicking. But now, they stand on the shoreline, bodies rigid, each intermittently letting out half-hearted barks. Neither swim out to him, and he doesn’t make moves back to them. Jared’s body, weightless, slows with the rhythm of the water. He keeps a toe on the lake bed, a tiny anchor against the water’s movements.

With his thoughts finally quieted, he trains his eyes back to the shore. The house on the lake is silent, motionless. No signs of life. He perks his ears up, but no sounds of motors or voices. Not a single ripple disturbs the turbid. Jared closes his eyes. The sound of his own heart, steady, slowed, fills his ears. _Still alive_ he muses absently.

The sun caresses his cheeks and he exhales.

Here, half-drowning in a strange lake, he finds himself smiling.

If he was being honest with himself, he would have happily spent another week with his blinds closed, Animal Planet on in the background, staring at his phone and jerking off.

But.

Every time he rolled himself off the couch to open the backyard door to let the kids out, especially the last few days, Sadie would give him this _look_. Harley trotted outside faithfully, but Sadie, she would stand in the doorway and just stare at him with those big brown eyes.

Sadie was giving him that same look that him Mom always gave him. The ‘if I had opposable thumbs I’d be shaking a Bible at you’ look. But his momma, she always went the extra mile. He can almost see her, hands clasped as if in prayer, eyes watery and red-rimmed, voice breaking; she has all these articles, these doctor names, these prayer groups to offer him. Worse yet, she looks at him so expectantly – like this most recent suggestion, intrusion, tense phone call was _the_ thing that finally helps.

It’s exhausting.

But even so, nothing hit quite near his heart like looking in those big, brown eyes. Eyes that depend on him. Eyes that seem to say, “Really, man? Again with this? You buy this big house, next to an off-leash park, and you can’t even bring yourself to get off the bed?”

So he twisted open the orange bottle, popped the pill, washing it down with what was left of last night’s beer. And he traced his fingers against Sadie’s temples, if only to try to communicate that he promises, he’s trying. And he’ll be better, for her.

That was last week.

Jared sits in the driver seat, tapping the steering wheel. It’s just becoming light out, and he’s in the only car parked in the lot. He glances back to the kids, patiently waiting for him in the backseat.

Tentatively, he checks his reflection in the rearview mirror. Dark circles under his eyes, hair haphazard and tousled. He darts his eyes away. At the beginning of the trail, he takes the time to stretch, his body moving uncomfortably under his unusually tight gym clothes.

He could just imagine – coming here during business hours, someone snapping a photograph for a shitty tabloid. ‘Out of shape out of work D-list movie actor, Jared Padalecki.’

Jared shakes his head, steels himself, and starts to run.

He huffs out a breath, moving his muscles with exaggeration, the stretch sending lighting bolts of pain through his calves.

He glances ahead at Sadie and Harley, joyfully sprinting in front of him along the trail. Guilt seeps in, somewhere between the burning in his lungs and the racing of his heart.

He has been letting them down a lot the past few weeks.

He’s been letting everybody down. Himself included.

Its in the beams of golden sunlight, dancing among the leaves of the rustling elm trees. Its in the coolness of the creek water, splashing against his shins as Harley and Sadie frolic in the babbling brook. Its in the ache within his own legs, endorphins racing to his brain – dusting off the cobwebs in his heart and pushing the button to a word he hasn’t thought about in some time. _Happy._

Jared squints, brushes droplets of from his eyelashes, and brings his watch to his face.

Only 6:45am.

Between the fence and Lake Austin were a row of neatly crafted houses, brick and picturesque, almost like they were built to be painted against the lush backdrop. And beyond that fence? Lake Austin itself, chocolate-milk brown and practically sparkling in the morning light.

Jared can almost feel the mud between his toes and his next actions are muscle memory, ingrained from years of racing his older brother into the nearest puddle, kicking up turbid water in each other’s faces. 

Jared runs past the parking lot and jumps over a short gate in a single leap. There's a tiny beach just over that fence, connected to a dock and well-polished motorboat. Jared grins and starts pulling off his shoes, socks, making arched, frog-like vaults into the murky water. Harley and Sadie, on his tail, barked fervently as they dove into the lake, panting heavily as they paddle near Jared. He can barely keep himself from giggling as he starts to splash water up at them.

For a brief brief moment, he’s somewhere between childhood, chasing girls with dripping water balloons around his cul-de-sac in San Antonio and at that over-the-top photo-shoot he had done for Gilmore Girls.

Being between those places is a good place to be.

As his arms tire from splashing, he finds himself wading forward, father from the shore, just to see how far he’d go. As if possessed, he takes footstep after footstep until just his eyes could see the surface of the water; an impressive feat for a man over six feet tall. Water covered his chin and mouth and Jared stops. He eases the tension in his muscles and his brain, a flurry, for once finally shuts up. Within the silence, Jared lets his eyes lose focus; the warmth against his skin, the heaviness of the water around him – he could almost fall into it, drown it it. He doesn’t move, and the world stays quiet.

* * *

He uses his arms to prop himself up. The headache he has is already pounding, and he feels a sliver of irritation surface as he hears commotion in his yard. _Goddamn kids in my yard again,_ the man grumbles to himself. He swings his legs over his couch and rubs his forehead, sighing dramatically. He makes his way to the window, ready to tell those teenagers to stop skinny dipping in his year, are you kidding, it’s _six in the morning you monsters_ – but instead he sees two dogs rigidly staring out at the water, letting out harsh barks every few minutes. The man furrows his brows and follows the dogs' eyes.

There’s someone in the water.

The realization shoots through the man like lightning, and he’s running before he knows it. He’s at his porch windows, fingers, wet from sweat scrambling to find the latch to the door when he sees the figure move.

The boy is smiling. His hair is long, plastered against his face. His eyes are shut tight and he’s turned towards the sun, like some kind of overgrown sunflower. He’s submerged to his chin but Jensen can make him out, sees his shoulders emerge. The boy is slowly wadding out of the water, towards two well-behaved pooches on the shore. They wag their tails.

Jensen presses his fingertips hard against the glass and breathes deeply.

“Jensen? You okay baby? What was that?” a woman’s voice calls from upstairs.

“Nothing, Dani. Some kid and his dogs jumped our fence but he’s leaving now.”

Jensen doesn’t take his eyes off the boy. The man. He’s tall, well built, leaving the lake in his boxers. He’s grabbing a T-shirt and shorts off the sand, taking his time to put them on. He doesn’t collar the dogs. He kneels in front of them, squeezes their faces and lands a kiss on each of their foreheads.

He jumps the fence, but Jensen doesn’t move.

* * *

Today there is a man on the boat. Jared keeps his breath even and slowly drifts to the shaded part of the lake, underneath a cover of brush and trees, The man on the boat, although Harley and Sadie are resting near the beach of his own yard, pays the pups no mind. He’s staring off in front of him.

Jared wades. The man on the boat paces. The man on the boat sits, placing hands between knees. He doesn’t look in Jared’s direction, but Jared keeps his breath short, moves slowly.

Not long after, he disappears into his home again.

Jared can barely catch his breath.

* * *

“Hey, Sands.”

The midmorning sun blazes through the tiny crack in Jared’s shades, casting lights on his empty walls. Whenever Jared opens the blinds completely to let Harley and Sadie out into the backyard, the glaring daylight reminds him of the dozens of big brown boxes littering the inside of his home.

Some are new – never opened before, furniture and dishes that he’d bought online with his phone. Some are old things – clothes and the like, some shipped by Chad from a friend’s place he had stayed at for a few weeks, some stuff from his mom’s that he drove down. Didn’t matter the origin – none of it is unpacked.

Except his IKEA futon, which, in its endless versatility, serves not only as his bed, but his couch, office and dining room.

“What? Jared?” Sandy mumbles, almost incoherent, voice slightly hoarse and broken over the phone. Jared’s chest feels like its tightening – how long has it been since he’s spoken to her?

“I was thinking – Harley and Sadie miss you. I miss you. I got this place – in Austin. So I’m staying here now, I guess. “

“That’s great to hear, Jared.” The words are sincere, calm, but there’s something curt in her voice. Not a curtness Jared is familiar with. He furrows his brows but continues.

“I’d love it… if you came to visit. I hardly unpacked at all. You’d be real embarrassed of me.” Jared laughs then, an experimental laugh, gauging the situation, gauging the risk of what he said. 

“Jared.” Jared grits his teeth. It’s not contempt, really, in her voice. But what is it? Jared picks at his nails. Pity? 

Sandy lets the line go silent for a second and Jared waits.

“…Look. I… Jared. I know its hard. Right now. And nothing makes sense. But….” Sandy pauses again and Jared recognizes the sound of Sandy chewing her lip on the line.

“You know, everything is going to be okay. Life will move on. But me and you…Jare, its been a long time now. I’m engaged. I’m always going to be your friend. Remember that yeah?”

Jared let the heaviness settle into his chest. He leans head against the wall, phone still pressed to his ear, and closes his eyes. It didn’t _feel_ like it had been that long. The lines on his face, Sandy’s engagement, this house, it all tells a different story, but in this moment Jared’s still 22 and Sandy was still his dream girl.

“Hey. Jay.” Sandy’s voice is gentle again, calm, and Jared smiles sadly to himself. She’s always been a good person. Too good for him.

“Let me know if you’re ever in L.A, okay? We’ll get coffee. I gotta go. It was good to hear from you. Take care.”

“Bye, Sands.” Jared presses the red touch screen and closes his eyes. His house, this extravagant crazy ass purchase in Austin, of all places, is deafeningly quiet.

He breathes deeply and looks around him. Full boxes. Blinds closed. Scripts stacked neatly in a corner by his kitchen. A box sits open, the one he brought from his mom’s place. He sits, crossed legged on the floor, and digs in.

He opens a folder, his awards. One letter, one that still felt familiar to him, sits front and center in the folder. Texas A&M logo plastered on the front.

The school he was going to go to. The dorm application, filled out, still waiting. Jared runs his fingers over the letters and sets the folder back down. He keeps digging.

A photo of him, front and center, in his junior year production of Hamlet.

A photo of him, lanky and bushy haired, mouth open in front of a microphone, three boys beside him, a a live action shot of the ‘Debate Club.’

He dumps the beer from last night and chases his pill with water. 

* * *

Jared calls him Boat Guy.

He’s been there every day. He comes out of his house 10 minutes after Jared gets into the water. Harley and Sadie have stopped reacting and now lay silently by the beach in the shade, just out of Boat Guy’s view, and wait for him to come back.

Jared hides now too. He’s stepped closer, just by a few feet, so he could see Boat Guy better. He’s always wearing the same thing. He always has a baseball cap, aviator sunglasses, black T-shirt. Sometimes he paces the boat. Sometimes he sits in front of the wheel, gazing at the lake. In Jared’s general direction.

Once or twice, Boat Guy clenched his right first and hit the steering wheel, softly. He’s of slender build. Blonde, as far as Jared could tell. Scruffy.

There’s a woman in the house. Sometimes she stands by the window, looking at him through the blinds. Jared can’t see her, not really. Only a flurry of auburn hair, a tender motion of the blinds, like she doesn’t want the man on the boat to know that she’s watching him.

Jared spends his time in the water thinking about the man on the boat. He imagines his life.

A man thinking about running away from his girlfriend. He sits in his boat, makes sure the motor is running, that everything is in order before he just drives his boat off into the lake, into the ocean, never to be seen again. Never mind that Lake Austin doesn’t connect to any ocean. It’s a nice thought.

A married man, his pregnant wife, not ready to have children. He’s baby-proofing the boat, imagining how he’ll take his son or daughter fishing, trying to find the bravery to go back into the house to take care of his wife.

A brother and sister taking care of their deceased parent’s home. The boat man sits on the boat, his fathers’ most precious possession. His sister is pressuring him to sell the boat. Its difficult to take care of, and they don’t use it much anyway. The man on the boat takes this time in the morning to reminisce about summers and picnics on the boat, not able to let go.

Boat Guy runs his fingers along the railing as he leaves, each time after about 30 minutes. When he’s gone, and Jared doesn’t see the blinds move, he himself gets out the water. His fingers pruned, he retrieves his shirt and shorts that he’s taken to hiding in a thicket of overgrown grass besides the lake entrance. He took to leaving Harley and Sadie outside the fence, still nervous of watchful eyes in the house. They sat patiently, wagging their tails as he hopped the fence back to them. They followed him to his car.

Jared doesn’t notice the people starring at him, soaking wet, his hair leaving a wet trail behind him. Jared can only smile.

* * *

Sure, he runs just a little bit faster today than yesterday, and sure, he skips right over Boat Guy’s fence like its a hurdle in the Olympics, and sure, Jared stops like he hit an invisible wall the second he sees, or rather, doesn't see, Boat Guy's boat docked.

Words bubbled in his mouth like champagne, words that Jared tossed and turned on his futon/bed all night trying to compose. Coming up with stories, explanations, practicing his surprised face in the mirror. Truly, it’s the most acting he’s done in months. 

Because, for some damn reason, he was ready for boat guy to _see_ him. And, well, if that turned into a conversation, be it cordial or angry or awkward, well, at least Jared had met someone new.

Jared stands in solitary in the sand, hands on hips and head raised to the sky. Even as he pants, he can’t seem to catch his breath, can’t seem to get enough air touching his skin, his eyes, his lips. He places his hands on his hips and rotates in a half-hearted stretch, eyes focused on the house.

He’s being reckless, really.

If he keeps acting like this, Boat Guy will call the cops on him, and soon enough not only would he be single and unemployed, he’d also be a felon with a restraining order.

Jared could swear that he saw an upstairs blind flip closed suddenly as he turns around, running back out onto the path and back to his car.

* * *

Jared jogs up to Boat Guy’s house, feet moving up and down in rapid succession but not covering nearly enough distance. Just a jogger. Not a stalker. Nothing like that.

Maybe he intentionally came a little bit later today. But Jared just tells himself its an off day, he’s tired, he’s out of shape, the soreness was just starting to set in from the previous few days….

This time though – Boat Guy was standing on his front porch, stretching in black loose shorts and a black t-shirt, discrete but very clearly running attire. A black iPhone armband is wound tightly around his bicep, and Boat Guy is pulling at the strap, adjusting it over his arm, flexing it back and forth.

If there was a pole around them, Jared would have jogged into it.

Boat Guy’s head perks up when he sees Jared and he takes one headphone out of his ear.

“Just started running here?” Boat Guy offers, eyebrows perked. He’s looking somewhere behind Jared but definitely not at Jared, who stops in his tracks, motioning for Harley and Sadie to stand beside him.

He twists the cord of his headphones between his fingers, and Jared watches him, breathing deeply. His body jerks in an effort to look around, to confirm that Boat Guy is really addressing him, but Jared stays still.

Jared finally nods back. “Last week.” A faint smile crosses Boat Guy’s face and Jared is sure that he’s overdoing it with the cardio, with the way his heart leaps up into his throat.

“Care to join me?” Boat Guy says – almost like a challenge - and in one fell swoop, he puts his headphone back into his ear and takes off, leaving Jared gaping at his porch. It took less than a second for Jared to turn around and take off after him.

His lungs will have to re-inflate later.

Jared doesn’t run with headphones – he rejoices in the sound of his breathing, his thumping heart, of birds singing in the morning, of the panting of his dogs. The aches and pains and pants of breath and the pulse in his heels were all the more proof of his hard work, and that’s almost a better reward than the running itself.

Boat Guy does wear headphones. The good kind. The BOSE kind.

Boat Guy is staring straight ahead with each step. Each movement forward is almost elegant, like the man is taking the strides that will soon be on the cover of Runner’s World magazine. Like the man was taught to run by a nun /gazelle hybrid, back straight, eyes forward, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. By god, the man’s nostril’s don't even flare.

Jared haphazardly sways his arms, legs straining in protest of the longer run, and for the long strides his companion is taking, but before long Jared matches Boat Guy’s gait, even if he isn't necessarily keeping his eyes straight ahead of him.

Boat Guy isn’t wearing a hat or sunglasses today, and he’s glowing, sheen of perspiration accumulating on his brow, dripping into his impossible long and luminescent eyelashes…

“I’m Jared – by the way.” Jared pants out. The only indication that Boat Guy even heard him was a slight twitch of the eyebrows, and even that could have been a trick of the light. Jared skips a few beats ahead of his companion; making sure his mouth is in Boat Guy’s line of sight.

“I said –“ Jared started to repeat louder, but Boat Guy was starting to grumble and Jared automatically felt himself move to his toes, making as little noise as possible so this guy could speak.

“Heard you. Name’s Jensen.”

Jared shakes his head, trying to clear the white lights popping up in front of his eyes. The name, Jensen, is louder and then quieter, like the waves from skipping stones. He’s hearing static and his heart is hammering, but they’re not even one mile in. Boat Guy – Jensen – isn’t breaking, eyes steadfast ahead, body rhythmic, his feet hitting the dirt. Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

“... Jared?”


	2. Chapter 2

_“Jared, Jared – Jared stop.”_

_He’s seeing himself, but it’s not him. Not really. He’s different, hair longer, eyes wild. This Jared is pacing back and forth, touching the walls of a quiet house, hair flying in different directions, shoulders hunched. He is steadfast, focused, as if the answer to his question is found at the opposite wall. His jaw is clenched tight._

_His hands are in fists and this Jared is him now, he sees the world through his eyes and he’s seeing, feeling only red._

_Fury, pain, love, they all boil inside and he hits his fists against the walls. They echo with en emptiness that doesn’t belong to its walls, still brimming with color and art and photographs. Jared is looking at the photographs but the faces are blurred, and he’s alone in the photographs, and his own hands are scratching at the walls, tearing them down._

_The glass doesn’t shatter, just thumps onto the wooden floor and Jared, both Jareds, are glad for it._

_The voice calling his name – that’s… Chad? Chad had his palms out, walking towards him like he’s some dangerous predator, face calm but eyes terrified._

_“How could he fucking do this?” Jared roars, and it tastes like fire and bile in his throat._

“Hey, you okay back there?” Jensen is a few feet ahead of Jared, stopped, one headphone out of his ear. Jared slows down to a jog, his feet heavy. He tries to tighten his grip on Harley and Sadie’s leashes, but his hands are shaking so hard that the leash falls slack on the dirt. The dogs don’t move– stare up at him with inquisitive eyes.

“Yeah – yeah.” Jared huffs, taking a deep breath in. _Weird_ he thinks.

“Fine. I just spaced out for a minute there.” He adds.

Jensen almost smiles – slight smirk, an angling of the lips, and he’s back to running,

Jared takes long strides to catch up.

“I’m new in town!” Jared pants out, one quick word after another, as if he’s using his last living breaths to talk to this guy. Jensen doesn’t so much as throw him a glance. 

“So?”

Jared falters but keeps speaking. “Uh. I don’t really know anybody. Here.”

“Mm.” Jensen grunts in response, and Jared closes his mouth for the remaining three miles, sweat dripping. He tries not to notice the the eyes on him, whether they be of people disgusted with the pool of sweat he was currently half running/half swimming in, admiring him, or – god forbid – recognizing him. He could swear that he heard the click of a camera once or twice.

If Jensen had heard anything, though, he paid no attention to it. He kept his eyes forward, pace consistent, despite the huge amount of attention he was pulling himself. Jared watched the faces of men and women, strolling or running past them, double take as Jensen sprang past them. Jared? He might as well be invisible. It was like running next to the sun.

When they reach Jensen’s house, Jensen bends his head and leans his elbows on his knees, finally taking the big gulping breath that Jared had been taking exclusively for the last ten minutes.

This was the first sign of his exhaustion. Even the small sheen of sweat that rolled off Jensen’s forehead didn’t stain his clothes. Jared, in comparison, was pretty sure that he could wring out his hair and there would be absolutely no difference in composition between his sweat and literal seawater.

Twice the distance for three sentences for some guy with a boat.

Which, in Jared’s defense, is slightly less insane that watching the same man from 10 feet away, being 90% submerged in lake water.

The two of them stay silent for the few seconds that it takes Jensen to catch his breath. Jensen clears his throat briefly and simply starts to walks to open his front door without even looking at Jared.

Jared bites his lip and looks after Jensen – just for a second. But he gets the point. He turns around and starts to walk back to his car.

“Hey –“

Jared spins around. Jensen stands by his front door, glancing over his shoulder. 

“Same time tomorrow?”

Jared only nods, his voice caught in his throat.

“Good. See you then.” Jensen says and disappears through his front door.

Jared waits until the door is closed to bend over, places his hands on his knees and takes whale-like gulps of air into his lungs. He glances over to Boat Guys – Jensen’s – fence and briefly considers jumping it and getting into the water. Only to see if Jensen would react. Only to see if he’d still come out onto the boat, run his hands against the wheel, pace down the dock. Just to see if he’d finally look at him, the crazy guy hiding in the water. See him. He turns away and walks towards his car.

His heart doesn’t stop racing on his drive home.

Jensen meets Jared outside his house every morning. He’s dressed in all black, headphones in his ears. As soon as Jared and his pups meet Jensen’s eye line, Jensen takes off in a jog and Jared picks up his pace to run in stride.

“So, the weather, it always like this?” Jared huffs out, but Jensen doesn’t turn to face him.

“You’re in Texas.” Jensen responds flatly.

Jared bites the insides of his mouth, stomach dropping. He stays silent for the rest of the run.

But all the same, Jensen barely lifts his eyes to Jared, and asks the same question.

“Same time tomorrow?”

Jared wakes up prior to the sun, without an alarm. He makes coffee. He fries bacon feeding the fattier parts to Sadie and Harley, who makes themselves at home under his feet.

He keeps the blinds open.

* * *

Jensen is different today.

They had been running together for two weeks, Jared hasn’t gotten into the lake for two weeks. Jared couldn’t help but be relieved each morning to see Jensen outside his front door. And rush of adrenaline when he doesn’t even acknowledge him, just take off, and Jared chases after? The few words he’ll get from him each time? The silence, the comfortable silence, between them?

Jared might as well be floating in a lake this whole time. He doesn’t run, he drifts. And he’s closer to the man on the boat now.

He knows the man on the boat, Jensen, runs a perfect 6.5 miles per hour. He never falters. He doesn’t sweat. He listens to bad 80’s rock. He doesn’t have a ring on his finger. He’s from Texas. He knows this trail so well that he can predict which areas bump and divot, spots that still trip Jared up. He smells like the wood isle of Home Depot and the open ocean, even though as far as Jared knows, Jensen is never in proximity of either.

Today, Jensen is skittish. His stride is uneven, his eyes keep meeting ogling joggers and darting away, and he’s not wearing his headphones.

As they stop in front of Jensen’s house, Jensen, for the first time, meets Jared’s eyes head on. Green, freckling brown. Just like the areas around his cheeks, his nose, his lips…

“Hey – stop by around one tomorrow?”

Jared feigns stretching and looks toward the ground.

“For what?”

“It’s a little cooler. Thought I’d take the boat out. I’d like for you to join.”

Jared stops his stretching, calf in hand, and gapes at Jensen for a half a second. He searches his mind for a quip or a cool comeback, but comes up empty.

“That sounds great, man. Yeah. I’ll be there.”

* * *

_“You know what my granddaddy says – best days of his life?”_

_“What did that old ornery Texan say?”_

 _"_ _The day he bought his boat, and the day he sold his boat.”_

_“Still think we should get a boat, J….”_

Jared wakes up in a cold sweat, an echo of soft voices lingering from his dreams.

He stares at his ceiling and listens to Harley snore at the foot of the futon before his heart settles down and he’s lulled back into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

“Hope you don’t get seasick.”

Jared tried to tease his hair into a perfect bedhead, before he just pulled on a beanie, Bermuda shorts and a short sleeve black Henley. He must have looked ridiculous; he certainly felt ridiculous, standing in front of Jensen with Jensen’s fancy house and Jensen’s fancy boat. Jensen waves Jared to follow him, and Jared does, right over the fence he’s hopped a dozen times, onto Jensen’s deck and – well. Into Jensen’s boat.

Boat Guy really does live up to his name.

Jensen is at the steering wheel, hands and body at ease like he’s driven this boat a trillion times before, like he drives it in his sleep. He has his hand on the clutch, another on the wheel, and he gazes out to the lake like a wind whipped, salty sea captain.

Jared can’t remember the last time in his life he had so little to say.

Jensen was right about the temperature; gray clouds littered the sky, obscuring the relentless sun. The air’s crisp today, the wind stirring the humidity. Jared takes off his hat and lets the fresh air rearrange his meticulously arranged bedhead.

He sprawls himself across the two seats, legs resting against the handrails, on one side, back nudged into those on the other. The mist of the lake occasionally sprayed him, sending pleasing shivers down his crackling skin. He could sit like this for the rest of his life without a word.

Jensen waves to a passing boat, neighborly smile spreading on his face. Worlds apart from Running Jensen or Boat Guy, this new version of the stranger has tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, skin glowing in the sun and the spray of the lake. Jensen’s shirt was wrinkled, his hands resting, his eyes soft and wandering.

Jared catches himself watching the other man. More than a few times.

Jensen isn’t looking back, though. So Jared keeps repeating the offense as the water and landscape blurs in indiscernible blue-green blotches in front of him.

“To tell you the truth,” Jensen raises his voice over the purr of the engines. His voice is rough, the kind of voice that comes out of someone early in the morning, before they’d had their coffee.

“I saw you in the water. That first day. It must have been the first day.”

A long pause extends between the men. Jared’s cheeks flush and he feels himself jerk upright. He’s tasting out words on his tongue, trying to see which can make the best excuse. God, he’s practiced this.

“I was just…” Jared starts.

“Its none of my business man. I don’t know what you’re going through, but it isn’t going to be alone.” Jensen’s serious, and Jared almost wants to laugh if not for the look on the other man’s face. Jared imagines all the things that Jensen must have thought of him, a crazy kid, hollering, taking his clothes off, and silently getting into the water, when it was almost too deep…

Oh. _Oh._ Jared swallows hard. He props himself up against his seat and clasps his hands.

“Where you from?” Jared finally asks, surprised by how uncertain his voice sounds. He adjusts his body, sitting at attention with his back straight in the hard seat.

“L.A. Been there since I was 18.” Jensen chuckles as if he’s been holding a breath for the past five minutes. Relief. The ring was high, childlike and Jared feels it radiate inside him until he’s laughing too, but for what reason, he doesn’t know.

“Me too. Right outta high school,” Jared almost yells, the tail of his words lost in the picking-up breeze. 

“We’re two fish out of water then.”

Jared hears a subtle drawl in those words and, without thinking, adds, “I’m from San Antonio. Originally.” He scoffs at himself.

“Went out to L.A. to be an actor.”

Jared doesn’t notice as the boat slows and Jensen turns off the motor, lulling the boat onto a dock. Jared glances around; the dock seems to belong to a busy restaurant, loud and adorned with tiki torches and bamboo umbrellas. 

“No shit,” is Jensen’s only reply, but there’s amusement in his voice, and Jared forms his words, lost to him for the thirty minutes that they were on Jensen’s boat.

“Didn’t work out so good,” Jared muses, “Just did a few low budget movies, a cameo on some coming-of-age TV shows. You know, the low budget stuff. But haven’t been consistently working in three years.” He shakes his head, murmuring as if speaking to himself. “Makes sense. I wasn’t ever any good. Moving home seemed like the only right choice.”

Jared absent-mindedly follows Jensen off the boat, and soon enough the two of them sit under a round table shaded by a bamboo umbrella. Couples and groups surround them for lunch, sharing jovial conversation. Jensen had taken off his sunglasses, hanging them by the frame on his v-neck shirt. Jensen’s nose is a little bit crooked, eyes gleaming green just like that goddamn lake, too deep and beautiful and Jared bites his tongue and glances away. Conversations quiet and Jared catches people turning in their chairs, mouths agape, starting at Jensen. Jared keeps his eyes trained on the water, pretending not to notice.

Jensen is leaning forward, serious, brow slightly wrinkled.

“Anything I might have seen you in?” he inquires, voice teasing.

Jared bites his lip and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

What would be the less embarrassing one to mention?

“Uh – Gilmore Girls? House of Wax?”

Jensen scoffs and Jared feels his whole face grow hot.

“I’m – “

“That’s wild man. That movie was horrible.” Jensen responded, a twinkle in his eye that made Jared look down on the table, suddenly a little bashful.

“You don’t have to tell _me_ that.”

“So – with successful projects like that, why you slumming it out here in Texas?”

Jared’s hands shake as he combs through his hair.

“Austin was always the plan. In the long term. For me, I mean.” Jared fumbles, speaking at the table rather than his companion.

Jensen’s eyes harden and his lips part, like he found the word that’s been lost at the tip of his tongue. His eyes flash back to Jared, study his face, his cheeks, focus on the mole on the right side of his face. The heat is reaching Jared’s ears and he picks at his fingers, trying to seem as preoccupied while Jensen’s eyes bore into him. 

“Austin was always the plan.” Jensen repeats, voice flat, nostalgic.

Jensen clears his throat and sits up straight, grasping at one of the menu’s in front of them, breaking the spell.

“Heard this place is pretty good,” Jensen mumbles. He turns his body, his eyes, away from Jared.

* * *

“Come in – “Jensen motions, opening his backyard sliding glass door. Of course Jensen’s house looked like a goddamn mansion.

Of course.

Half-rustic, half-modern, decked out in dark wood, high ceilings, walls covered with fine art. There’s even a goddamn grand piano.

Of course there is.

Jared awkwardly kneels down to untie his mud covered combat boots, suddenly ridiculous in such a pristine place.

“Danni, you home?” Jensen calls upstairs, leaving his baseball cap on what Jared assumes is a kitchen table. Jared bites down without thinking, clipping his tongue. _Danni?_ Must have been the woman that watched Jensen watching him. Glancing through the blinds. The wife/girlfriend/sister/friend that Jared could never form a great backstory for.

Jared’s heart sinks the second he sees the person descending down the staircase. Thin yet voluptuous, long straight dark hair and a classic, all-American girl face with big lips, button nose, and sharp eyes that belong to a femme fatale character in a Blockbuster movie.

Holy shit.

He _knows_ her.

And the feeling seems to be mutual. Danni stops sharply halfway down the staircase, before continuing forward, more slowly, deliberately, expression unreadable.

She smells like vanilla and brown sugar and that jogs Jared’s memory. He stares, dumbfounded. She twitches under his stare.

“You’re… Danneel Harris.”

Her jaw tenses for a split second before she flashes a perfect, luminescent smile.

“Sure am!,” she exclaims. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes and Jared wants to apologize immediately, though he isn’t sure what for.

Jensen, thankfully, comes to the rescue.

“Danni, this is Jared – Jared. Something? I didn’t get his last name. And Jared, this is Danneel Harris – I guess you’ve heard of her? My girlfriend.”

The words dry his tongue and suddenly, Jared wants to leave. He doesn’t want to be next to this vanilla scented vixen who seems to despise the very look of him. The walls of this gigantic house seem to be closing in on him and Jared finds himself breathing heavier.

“Yeah. I… I worked with Riley. On a movie. And I’ve seen One Tree Hill. So. Yeah. Your… girlfriend…” words tasting like sand, “You two have a lovely home.”

Jensen shifts his eyes between the two of them and continues.

“Kid’s new in Austin. I’m thinking we could show him a bit of that famous Southern hospitality. Grill some steaks, drink some beers? What do you say, sweetheart?”

Jared can’t look at Jensen right now, feels the tips of his ears burning like mad, so he looks at Danneel expectantly, flashing dimples in an apologetic smile.

Danneel isn’t looking at him; she’s shooting daggers in Jensen’s direction, seeming to consider her next words very carefully. Instantaneously, her posture and face change.

“Sure, honey. I’ll go to the grocery store and buy some steaks,” she purrs, tone much more delicate than Jared would have expected. She leans forward and lands a wet kiss on Jensen’s cheek. Before either man says a word, she’s heading out the front door, purse in hand.

The door slams shut behind the two men. Jared averts his eyes, hand instinctively going to the back of his neck to scratch his head.

“Actually – I. Uh. I have to go home and feed my dogs, walk ‘em.” Jared looks back up at Jensen. Jensen has his eyes focused on him, devoid of expression but somehow still looking right through Jared, making him feel naked, unprotected. Jared swallows hard and looks away, instead making work of lacing his ridiculous shoes back on. Jensen doesn’t speak and Jared darts up, reaching his hands into his pocket and jingling his keys. 

Jensen gives Jared a curt nod and starts walking away again, expressionless.

“Bring them over tonight. Gotta marinate the steaks anyway. Say – 8?”

Jared watches Jensen disappear into one of the many rooms of this monster of a house.

* * *

Jensen has his legs spread, body limp against one of the chairs on his deck, beer in hand. His face is pointed towards the lake, voice becoming more melodic with each sip.

Jensen doesn’t talk like this. He doesn’t. He’s always short sentences, silence, curt words. But now, he’s waxing poetic and Jared feels his head swimming.

The chairs are situated around the fire pit, that apparently Jensen has built, in his deck. The flames crackle and sizzle, the smell of burning wood mixing sweetly with the general muskiness of the evening and the sound of cicadas.

Danneel sits in a chain across from them for maybe ten minutes, back straight and hands clasped tightly against one another, face a careful arrangement of indifference and politeness. As far as Jared could tell, she hadn’t smiled once.

She mumbles something about cleaning up inside the house and disappears.

Jared grips his beer a bit tighter, brings it up to his lips. Its cool, condensation forming on the bottle and tastes too exquisite for a Tuesday night. Harley and Sadie lay leisurely on the deck, calm in a way he’s never seen them in such a new environment. With Danneel gone, the open night suddenly felt too close, too intimate, like it’s just the two of them in the entire world.

“Seems you got a good life here, man.” Jared speaks, softly, almost afraid that his voice will disturb the atmosphere of the evening.

“Its different here.” Jensen responds softly.

“You…seem like Hollywood is more your pace.” Jared adds, eyes scouring Jensen’s profile again.

Jensen chuckled. He bends his forehead forward and finally breaks his gaze with the lake, looking at Jared. His smile, warm and sincere, nearly knocked Jared off his chair. Jared was almost starting to scramble, take his words back, but Jensen looked him in the eyes and Jared’s head goes blank.

“Nah.” Jensen finally replied, eyes still locked with Jared’s. “The only thing I really miss about Southern California is Temecula.”

Jared perks up and leans forward, eyes shining.

“You’re a wine guy?”

Jensen smirks and leans in close, voice down to a whisper.

“You can’t say shit like that out loud in Texas but… man – the Vindemia Estate 2004 Cabernet? Like Dionysis himself crushed those grapes, drank the wine and _then_ let it breathe by giving me mouth to mouth resuscitation.”

Jared snorts, Jensen’s whispered voice sending shivers down his spine. He raises his chin and squints his eyes, dramatically flailing his arms in front of him, “Ay, it’s the tannins!” he said in his best Boston accent. 

Jensen laughs and looked into his own lap, the two men growing quiet again. 

“Something about this place makes me feel like… I’m getting back something I’m missing, you know?” Jensen speeks, suddenly serious. He shakes his head at his own words, sad smile plastered on his face. It made 100% sense. Jared could only nod along.

Jared _does_ know.

In the back of his mind, Jared registers a raised voice in the house – Danneel, maybe on the phone.

He blanks it out.

Jensen finally breaks eye contact and gazes back out to the lake.

“Run again tomorrow?” Jensen asks, almost earnestly.

As if Jared would ever say no.

* * *

When Chad comes to visit, Jared sleeps on the floor.

Chad is tentative when he enters the oversized house, duffle bag in one hand and an innocuous bottle of what was probably liquor, knowing Chad, in the other.

“This is… cozy.” Chad says unenthusiastically. He drops his duffel bag on the floor, sets the bottle on the kitchen island with a resounding ‘clunk’ of glass, and steps outside. When Jared joins him, Chad already had a cigarette between his lips, taking deep drags.

“How are you doing?” Chad asks, finally, as he taps the ash onto the concrete of Jared’s porch, letting it linger in his fingers briefly before taking another drag. The words are heavy, stagnant between them like the cigarette smoke.

Chad’s tense, quiet. But then, Chad is always hard to read, even when he’s in a good mood.

Jared sits next to Chad, bare toes digging into the drying grass.

“I’m good. Its. Its all good. I haven’t really… explored much. So. But Sadie and Harley love it here. Big, open yard. I met a friend.”

Chad is already lighting a second cigarette.

“A friend?” He mutters as he covers the cigarette and his Zippo lighter from the tiny breeze with one cupped hand.

“Yeah. A guy that lives by the park I run at.”

“A guy? I thought you were done with guys.” Chad states simply, but it doesn’t stop Jared from impulsively rising to his feet so he towers over Chad.

“What – no. Its not like that. He’s just my friend. We run together.”

Chad raises his eyebrows knowingly, but doesn’t look at Jared.

“Funny story,” Jared adds tentatively, “His girlfriend is Danneel Harris. You remember her?”

“Fuck!” Chad shouted out and Jared jumps. Chad is patting at his crotch, embers still sizzling on the denim, the cigarette still lit. A few pats and the embers die down. Chad let out an annoyed sigh and for the first time, looks at Jared directly. Jared can’t help but notice the dark circles under his eyes and a waxy tint to his skin.

“Small fucking world.” Chad grits out. “And the friend’s name?”

“Jensen. Not sure what his last name is.”

“Well. Shit. Unbelievable.” Chad shakes his head and sighs. “Out of all the fucking places in the world, right?” he bemoans, and Jared nods along with Chad’s dramatics.

“Hey man,” Chad quickly changes the subject,” I have some news to share. Looks like Sophia and Austin are getting engaged.” Chad lights yet another cigarette and gazes off somewhere beyond Jared’s yard, as if his own marriage was playing on a big screen in front of him.

Jared feels his own heart ache. Austin. Sure, he was before Sandy, and sure, they were only kids, but you never really forget your first, do you?

“You like him?” Chad asks, as a secondary thought, but there’s a twinge of sincere curiosity in his words. He taps his his fingers rhythmically on the concrete next to him. 

Jared pauses.

“He’s someone that reached out when I was having a hard time.”

“I don’t think you should be around that guy,” Chad says slowly, taking another drag of his cigarette. “You know those Hollywood types. You came here for a simple life. To get better. I don’t want _you_ getting mixed up in something…unsavory.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Jared replies. He feels his voice raise. He stands up, walks to his kitchen, pulls out the drawer. He takes a small orange bottle, almost childish in his massive hands, out and brings it to Chad. He shakes the pills inside.

“You know man, I’m actually taking these. And… I am doing better. And its partially thanks to my new _friend,_ asshole.”

“Whatever man, ruin your own fucking life for all I care. I have my own shit to deal with. I mean, she’s my friend. Part of me thinks I should have made that trip to Canada.”

Jared rakes his brain for an explanation of Chad’s stupid response. He can only come up with one.

“Fuck Canada.” Jared laments. Chad chuckles.

“I’ll drink to that.”

* * *

Jared taps the sides of his iPhone, eyes staring up at the ceiling. The only light in the room is from screen. He holds it above his face, sighs, and rests the phone against his upper lips. Chad’s name flashes at the top of his phone in another text message – Jared quickly swipes it up without reading.

“Hey.” Jared taps out. He backspaces and stares into the ceiling again.

“Thanks for dinner the other night.” Backspace, backspace, backspace. Jared sighs deeply.

“What’s the most ridiculous thing you did while living in L.A?” Jared breathes in deeply and hits send, immediately exiting out of the message.

Within moments, Jared feels his phone vibrate. He opens the message, heart racing. Jensen’s reply was a single picture – of a young blonde guy, shirtless, with a cowboy hat and big, puffy lips – Jared bursts out laughing to the empty room.

“Shit man I didn’t know you were in Brokeback Mountain. Or was this the porn version, Bareback Mountain?”

He texts back within seconds

“I wish, man. Probably would have paid better.”

* * *

Leave it to Chad to make things weird.

Jared fumes and thrusts his hands under the warm water of the faucet. He grabs the dish scrubber and pours some dish soap on it absently.

He grabs one of the plates out of the sink, sticky with steak sauce, and starts to scrub aggressively, bubbles building up as the water continues to get hotter.

Done with guys. _Done with guys._ The _audacity_ of that simpleton to infer that Jared would ever, _could_ ever, be into Jensen. He scrubs harder. Biphobic asshole _. He can be friends with men. He can be friends with whomever_. Doesn’t matter if they’re handsome or smart or look right through him like a –

“What are you doing?”

Jared jerks up and looks to his side to Jensen, standing in front of the sink next to him.

“You’ve been scrubbing the same plate for five minutes.” Jensen points out. Jared stares down at the plate dumbly before rinsing it under the warm water and handing it over to Jensen. Jensen, not missing a beat, picks up a towel and starts to dry the dish.

Shoulder to shoulder, Jared could hardly breathe, each plate scrubbed more and more hurried, so he could lean away, so he wouldn’t have to feel the heat, warmth, scent, of the man next to him.

Jensen paid him no mind.

‘Goddamn it, Chad,’ Jared thinks again.

His fingers brush Jensen’s when they pass plates, and its almost like Jensen doesn’t see that he’s set the man next to him on fire.

* * *

Danni isn’t there when Jensen invites him over for dinner. Jensen stands at the grill, intermittently sipping on his beer. Jared sits on the porch near the fire pit, letting the warm glow comfort him.

“Why the boat?”

“Hmm? Well. I learned how to sail in LA. I like being out in the water.”

Jensen sat close, almost too close, his knee rubbing against Jared’s.

“Look, let me show you,” Jensen leans in and Jared averts his eyes from him, suddenly embarrassed and sweating profusely. He bites the inside of his cheeks as Jensen’s shoulder nudges against him and Jensen is showing him pictures on his phone, of some sailboat or motorboat or some kind of fucking boat – Jared’s vision goes blurry and he tries to hum a song to himself, anything to keep himself calm. Jensen’s shoulder is solid as as rock and close up, Jensen smells of firewood and whisky. His soft, blonde hairs, neatly trimmed, perfectly hug his ears. His neck is smooth, muscles dipping into a collarbone into a V-neck white T-shirt, which hugged his chest just tight enough, sticking to his flanks.

He feels the all too familiar throbbing in his pants and breathes in deeply again, the exhale coming out - shaky, weak.

_“You’re so fucking beautiful. God, Jen, I – “_

The hairs on the back of Jared’s neck stand up and he pulls away from Jensen, knee apart and readjusts his shoulders, making it appear that he was getting more comfortable in the chair.

 _I’ve been here before. I’ve done this before_. Deja-vu crashed into Jared, knocking the wind out of him. Jen. _Jen_. He could swear he’s never called anyone that, never heard anyone call Jensen that. But it came, so sweet, so intimate into his mind like that name was tattooed on the most primal parts of his brain.

Jared clears his throat and nods absently. Jensen pauses, looks him up and down and reaches out a hand as if to place to his shoulder, but something prevents him from reaching out all the way. Jensen places his phone back in his pocket, wraps both hands around the bottle of his beer, and leans back.

“Hey man, I understand if you don’t want to hang out with me anymore. I don’t want to monopolize your time.”

Jared almost jumps out of his chair, eyes wide.

“God – no, no, Jen, I, you’re not monopolizing anything. I’m the one that’s intruding. On your home. On your life. You don’t even know me, I could – I could be like a murderer. Just. Just plotting to murder you.”

Jensen raises his eyebrows.  
  
“J… Jen?” he repeats after Jared, letting the word slip out of his mouth like he’s tasting it for the first time.

“Shit – no, dude, I’m sorry, I don’t know why, that’s, that’s weird, no, Jensen, I – “

“Hey, stop. Stop. I like it.” Jensen smiles, gently, at the ground, not facing Jared. Jensen’s fingers trace down the beer bottle and Jared, Jared isn’t sure how he was still breathing with how tight his chest has become.

* * *

“You’ve honestly never seen it?” Jared’s voice might be three octaves too high, but he can’t stop fidgeting, making grabby hands at Jensen.

“This piece of crap? Not a chance.” He’s holding New York Minute in his hands, eyes skimming the back cover of the DVD, shit-eating grin on his face.

“Give it –“

“Who even owns their own movies?”

“Damn it, Jensen, its – its an autographed copy. Give it back – “ Jared leans over but Jensen reaches out of the way, making Jared lean across him.

“Pfft. Shit. Now its worth even less than market value. I’d be doing you a favor if I...” Jensen flicks his wrist, makes a tossing motion towards the open doors of Jared’s backyard.

Jared almost falls over as he quickly jumps over Jensen and grabs the DVD, cradling it protectively in his hands. Jensen only rolls his eyes and takes the opportunity to look around Jared’s house.

“Man. Are you lucky you met me. You’ll finally have a place to eat.”

Jared furrows his brow. “There is a perfectly good place right there!” Jared motions down at the carpeted floor directly in front of the futon where half-full take out boxes of Chinese lay haphazardly, napkins splayed around to prevent the sticky sauce from getting on the floors.

“Where…? How do you even read your scripts? Drink your coffee?”

“I have a perfectly good script reading corner right over there – “ Jared points to the pile of white paper, stacked three feet tall, in one corner of the room, the one farther from the porch but closer to the bathroom.

Jensen shakes his head disdainfully.

“I’m not even sure you own this house. I bet you’re a squatter.”

“Is my ass looking that good?”

Jensen punches Jared in the shoulder, almost too hard to be playful but Jared can’t stop laughing, arching his back so he could take a good gander at his assets.

“A brawl? In my own home? You think you can take me?!” Jared adds, punching Jensen back.

Jensen raises his eyebrows, looking Jared up and down as Jared takes on a fighting stance, complete with bouncing back and forth like he’s seen on Street Fighter.

“Yeah, man. Of wait – you mean in a fight?”

Jared’s face flushed immediately, beet read while Jensen hollered with laughter, taking a full minute to catch his breath before gracing Jared with a shit-eating grin.

“You’re the worst person.” Jared mumbles, but he can’t help but smile back. After all, Jensen’s smile? Contagious. Even worse than that? Terminal.

“Look – just. Consider it a house warming present from me.”

“You bought me furniture, though? Thanks, creepy old man from down the street. Next you’ll be buying me new clothes and a pink collar that says ‘Daddy’ on it.”

“Jared. Shut up. It’s a coffee table.”

“Might as well be an engagement ring.”

Jensen scoffs and shakes his head, smile on his face, almost exasperated.

As if remembering something, Jensen quiets and his smile fades into a hard line. The lightness of the moment dissipates in front of Jared’s eyes like it was something tangible.

Jensen pauses, opens his mouth, and closes. He nods sharply, if only to himself, and opens his mouth again. 

“Speaking of…” Jensen starts.

“Oh no. Jensen. Dude. I’m…” Jared jokes, dramatically squeezing his cheeks in with his hands as if shocked. Despite his own laughter, something dark and heavy settles in the pit of his stomach. Something in the room is changing and Jared’s pulse quickens.

“I know we’ve only known each other a short time…” Jensen continues, ignoring Jared’s stunts.

“Jensen. Do not. I swear to god. I was just kidding.” Jared feels his nostrils flare, unexpected pressure in his chest. He wills Jensen to stop talking.

“But I feel like I’ve known you for years. So. I have a serious question to ask.”

“I’m gonna punch you. Square in the jaw. Don’t speak again.”

“I’m thinking about asking Danni to marry me. What… do you think?”

Thigh to thigh on the futon, Jensen is staring at him, head on, and Jared needs to move, right _now_ , immediately. His body is suddenly too big, the room too small. Jared presses his lips together tightly and darts off the futon, heading straight to the backyard. Harley, a never ending ball of energy, bounces up to him, shoving his head under Jared’s hand. Jared pets him distractedly, gazing out into his yard and the lush overgrowth of open space and suburbia before him.

“Seems like a silly question to ask me. I hardly know you. Or her.” Jared says when he feels Jensen hovering behind him.

“But I _am_ asking you.”

Hand on the shoulder now, gentle but imploring and Jared gulps and bites his lip hard before putting his actor face on and turning around.

“Why are you thinking about asking her now?”

“I mean.” Jensen shrugs and looks away towards Sadie, resting on Jared’s lawn, shaded by the shadow cast from his fence.

“Its been four years. We’re in our 30s. She moved to Austin from Los Angeles for me. Seems like the right thing to do. She’s in L.A for an audition now. Will be back in two weeks. Thinking of asking her then.”

They stay quiet for what seems like eternity.

“You love her?”

“I’m…happy with her.”

Jared shoots back with a harshness in his voice he immediately regrets. “But do you _love_ her?”

A knock on the door interrupts them and Jensen takes the opportunity to back off and answer the door like he owns the place. The delivery men stand right outside Jared’s door with a large brown box. A reminder of the reason that Jensen’s sitting in his living room in that moment, a reminder of reality.

A friend. Helping him get situated in a new town. Helping him build furniture.

And nothing more.

Jared grits his teeth, immediately ashamed of himself.

“Its here,” Jensen adds, just to fill the room with something. Jared hurriedly clears the floor from their food and directs the people to the living room floor, where he’ll be assembling the coffee table with Jensen in silence.


	3. Chapter 3

“God fucking DAMN IT.” Jared screams, banging his firsts against the walls, but they’re already red, swollen, too numb and he can’t see past the tears, can’t taste anything but the bile in his throat.

“Jared…” Chad starts, voice unusually calm.

“Where the fuck is he, huh? He just up and left? Changed his fucking phone number?” Jared grabs his phone out of his pocket and tosses it on the couch, controlling himself enough not smash it against the wall. He doesn’t turn any of the lights on – the evening is just setting in, casting harsh shadows in a house that was too bare.

Everything is suddenly foreign, like a bad dream, and Jared swallows hard to keep the acid in his stomach from migrating back into his throat. The room is spinning.

_This can’t be happening._

Jared clutches his head and starts pacing back and forth, feet banging too loud against the wooden floors, the walls echoing hollowly back at him. Everything is just too loud, too empty, too much.

“Jared – stop. Jared. JARED.”

Jared stops pacing and without recollection, he’s sitting on the floor, arms around his knees.

Jared is mumbling now, not loud enough for Chad to hear, his own little prayer trying to calm his racing heart. “He would never do this. No. He wouldn’t just – it was one little fight. One. He wouldn’t just leave me. Right? He didn’t take the furniture. He didn’t…”

But the back of Jared’s mind is alive with contrary information and he can’t ignore it for long before its screaming in the forefront. _His cologne, toothbrush, shampoo that smells like coconuts is gone. His photo album, most of his clothes, his car. His key to the house is on the counter. Its on the counter. He isn’t coming back. He left you._

“Its impossible.” Jared argues out loud with the thoughts screaming in him mind. “That’s not the Jensen I know. He’d never. Just… He wouldn’t. He’s. He’s…”

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Chad squats down next to Jared. Jared doesn’t look at him, just wraps his arms tighter around his knees, waiting for the vertigo to pass. He has to keep the sobs in, has to, to show at least some dignity…

But its too late even for that. Jared breathes in deep, voice hitching, eyes burning. He realizes, suddenly, that he’s still a little bit drunk from the weekend, that his stomach is churning, that if he had only been home then Jensen might not have… might….

“Jared. Man. I just… I got this email. From Sophia. She got it from Danni.” Chad is shoving his phone into Jared’s face but Jared just looks away, more terrified than curious.

Jared grits his teeth. “Danni? Is he with her?”

Chad shakes his head, but its too careful, too slow.

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what IS the point?”

Chad starts to read – voice low, almost like Jared is being read a bedtime story.

Dear Danneel Harris,

Jensen Ackles had Jared Padalecki erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again. Thank you.

LACUNA, LTD Vancouver Branch

Jared feels his own breathing stop and he starts to shake his head. This is preposterous. And impossible. And would never happen.

Jensen wouldn’t just _forget_ him.

Even if it was possible. Which its not. Right?

Jared covers his face with his hands and slowly runs them down, feeling his tears and letting the skin get taught.

“This is fucking impossible.” Jared repeats, eyes focused on some distant point in his house.

“Look, man,” Chad is now circling around, sitting where Jared’s gaze is, where Jared can’t ignore him and Jared wants to recoil, push him away, hates every goddamn person on this entire planet, but…

“They’re legit. And illegal in the States. Jensen must have been really desperate…”

“Stop.” Jared cuts him off, threading his fingers through his hair.

A second passes. Ten seconds. A minute, maybe. Jared isn’t sure. But the thought formed almost immediately and Jared doesn’t hesitate.

“I want to do it too.” Jared states. He still doesn’t look at Chad, though from his peripheral vision he could see Chad shaking his head.

“That’s some ridiculous bullshit.” Chad says, putting a hand on Jared’s shoulder. He doesn’t sound angry, almost sad, and that makes Jared even angrier.

“Why? Explain why I shouldn’t go down there and get them to wipe that closeted self-hating goddamn coward from my entire existence.”

Even as Jared says the words, they feel awful in his throat, like his tongue would detach the second he speeks ill of Jensen. But what was he supposed to do?

Chad’s voice lowers to a whisper, so Jared could hear the hum of the streetlights and lawn sprinklers outside his home. The world going on despite his loss.

“Man - you are who you are because of Jensen. How much you learned from him, how much you grew, your show. Yeah, it hurts. Being dumped always hurts. But you’re all the better for it.”

Jared scoffs, trying to discretely wipe new tears forming. Being dumped _. Dumped_. Like he’s garbage. This isnt just being dumped. Rage continues to build up in Jared’s chest, threatening to explode.

This wasn’t being dumped. It was being erased. It was no longer existing. It was never having been…

“Yeah?” Jared said, unable to control his voice.

“Well, fuck that. Fuck it. I wish I never met him.”

* * *

“Start with your name, and the name of the person you want to erase. Then tell us a little bit about said person.”

Jared nods, looking up at his doctor. The man is middle aged, with slowly graying dark hair and an elastic face, one with many laugh lines and forehead wrinkles like he’s spent his whole life making faces. His voice is gravely, too gravely for a man his age, but most of his statements ended in questions, on a higher note and his back is always slouched. He almost seems silly, if not for the fact that he’s about to fuck with Jared’s brain.

Its difficult for Jared to wrinkle his forehead, with all the leads placed on him, but he tries his best anyway.

“Alright. Uh. My name is… Jared Padalecki. And the person I’m erasing is…” Jared pauses, controlling the vibrations of his voice. “Jensen Ackles.”

“Please continue.”

“What do I say?”

“Well… How the two of you met. Your impression of him.”

Jared smiles and the screen next to him lights up. As the doctor takes vigorous notes, Jared starts to speak, voice quiet.

“I. I liked him right away. Three years ago – casting call for a pilot of a TV show. About brothers, road tripping across the states, fighting monsters. Star Wars meets Route 66 – or something. I knew _of_ him. Jensen. I. We had a casting call, together, and we read for the part. They gave us a show. He was. I don’t know.” Jared chuckles, his eyes closing.

“Different, I guess. Is that the right way to say it? Different. Genuine but… I don’t know. Shy. Damn talented, cool as hell. Too cool.”

Jared pauses, his voice hitching, darkening.

“Damn front he put up that whole time. Too cool, that’s Ackles for you. Too cool to let the world know – that. Urgh. Fuck. You’re recording this, right?”

Doctor nods and Jared sighs, digging his fingers into the arms of his chair until they started to hurt.

“The show was over. Three years of in each others pockets, every day and every night – I wanted to be together after it was over. Public. Rainbow flags on our windows, holidays with the parents, that sort of thing. He… he didn’t share that dream. He went and forgot I ever…” The heart monitor spiked again, and the doctor starts typing vigorously, eyebrows knitted together in concern.

“He forgot I ever fucking existed. Coward.” The words were sour on Jared’s tongue, irony not even remotely lost on him. But if Jensen gets to be a coward, gets to be so weak, then so does Jared. _He’s the one that made me brave_ Jared thinks. The screen lights up and the doctor flashes his eyes to him.

The doctor starts to detach the blood pressure cuff and the leads on his head.

“Okay – I think we’ve pinpointed the location of your memories of Jensen – the good and the bad. Its important for us to know the beginning and the end – the map gets more logical from there. Next step – we’ll make an appointment for tomorrow – is to bring everything from your home that reminds you of him. Pictures, anything you bought together, anything that could remind you of him.”

Jared rolls his eyes, heart hammering.

“What do you expect me to do with my house? Furniture?” he asks, only partly to be a dick. Partly to get an actual answer. _How can I ever sleep in that bed again?_

The doctor nods. “That’s something we’ll consider tomorrow. Don’t worry. We’re experts in this, and this isn’t our first rodeo, so to speak. Once we have a better idea, we’ll know what to do.”

The doctor smiles a smile that carves from ear to ear. It was almost – almost – disconcerting.

“We only have to pull on the string for things to unravel, as it were. We take the most recent, more active and intense memory, and work backwards from there. Its all connected, and, if I do say so,” the doc’s eyes flash, “Extremely effective.”

* * *

The tears don’t come. The nostalgia doesn’t set in. Each movement is purposeful, and Jared feels the tension in his muscles relax. This isn’t just pain, just avoidance. This had a scientific reason behind it. No agonizing what to keep, what to hide, what to destroy, what to return.

It all had to go. 

That PlayStation game that he had given to Jensen as a gift Season 1. All three seasons of Supernatural. A small makeshift Chevy Impala, with tiny popsicle stick figures of Jensen and Jared in the front seat. All of Jared’s stolen plaid shirts from the show, for good measure.

The photographs. Particularly the one that Jared hung on the wall of their study, when Jensen first moved in. Jensen blushed so deeply and Jared ribbed him, joking, “Hey, this is the moment you fell in love with me! Caught on camera!”

Looking at the picture now, them both younger, him thinner with shorter hair grinning happily at Jensen whose chin was in his hands. They were sitting in their actor chairs, knees nearly touching. And this was just the beginning. Jared bites his lip and tosses the picture without a second glance.

Soon enough, that will be gone too. 

There were some pages of sheet music that Jensen must have forgotten, some folded pieces of notebook paper that Jared kept in a box of small notes he passed to Jensen, like they were school children, on set. He tossed the whole box, not daring to shift through the contents.

He gets a new garbage bag. The guitar pick that Jensen gave him. The _guitar_ that Jensen gave him last Christmas. Jared wipes his camera clean of all pictures, resets his laptop to factory settings.

It’s tempting to put the locks of his hair that he’s haphazardly cutting off into the Jensen garbage bag too, but that seems excessive.

He runs his hands through his hair in front of the mirror – end of an era, he laughs, but the laugh is empty and bitter.

Chad comes over later, a bottle of tequila, twelve pack of beer, and a bottle of whiskey in tow. Jared scrunches up his face in distain, but Chad shrugs.

“If you want me to help you with this plan, you need to have a reason to not remember the last few days and to believe any story I tell you.”

“Sure. Sure. I put this house up for sale. Gave your info. You sell it to the first offer, okay? Just get rid of it.”

Chad directs Jared to the bathroom where he uses scissors to even out Jared’s haphazard cut. Jared almost feels embarrassed how comforting it feels, Chad’s rugged hands on the back of his neck, handling his tresses like a goddamn expect. Almost like when his momma gave him his bowl headed haircut when he was barely tall enough to ride a rollercoaster.

He’s in good hands. Heavy drinking, chain smoking, dirty cheating hands. But, Jared muses, good in other ways.

“I don’t like that you’re doing this, man. I didn’t forget Sophia, even though I think about her every day.”

Jared watches the two of them in the mirror, Chad carefully brushing through his hair, examining the length of the strands between his fingers, and snipping.

“That was your fuck up.”

Chad scoffs.

“And yours wasn’t?”

Jared clenches his jaw, but he doesn’t dare move. Chad’s the one with the sharp scissors and access to his bank account. Chad is the one who was going to make this all work for him.

“Well. You’ll have first class seats to me erasing Jensen. If it doesn’t look too bad, maybe they have a buy one get one free deal.”

Chad stops his movements, and shortly after dusts the hair off Jared’s shoulders. Jared runs a hand through it.

This was it. The boyish haircut that he had when he met Jensen, a little bit shorter to match his more angular face, his larger body. He looks older. It unsettles Jared, but only for a moment.

Chad raises his eyebrows and admires his work, looking in the mirror at both at himself and at Jared.

“I don’t want to forget, Jay. I wouldn’t ever want to forget her.”

Jared clears his throat, averting his eyes from the mirror.

“That sucks, man.”

Jared keeps the door to his shared bedroom with Jensen firmly closed. He hauls the trash bags downstairs, sets them by the door and lays down a blanket on the couch.

Chad stays in his office room. Even in there, he could still sense Jensen’s ghost.

Jared thought he’d do this with dignity. He really, truly, prepared himself to sit stone-faced in that chair, look at all the objects that Jensen had given him, that signified their life together, hell, his entire life for the past three years, and let his brain do its thing. React. He imagined himself sitting stoically, images of love fading before him. Like some kind of dramatic romance movie martyr.

The tears are, as it stands, a surprise.

Only because he notices the screen – reading his neuronal outputs, connecting them to the objects.

Only because he sees the shadow – and that’s all it was, a shadow, but it was Jensen – sitting next to him, teaching him cords on the guitar. Jensen, walking through the house for the first time. Jensen, playing with the camera, recording him. He saw himself start laughing, younger, hair curling around his ears and the tears came.

He must have looked a sight. Chad was by his side, sitting in the chair across from him. He was looking away, face contorted in some uninterpretable emotion, arms crossed. Jared’s grateful for that. 

“I would never forget her.” That’s what he said. Like it was the worst sin that could be committed against another person. And perhaps it was. A sin that Jensen has already committed.

The two technicians, a woman with bright ginger hair and a man, curly haired with round glasses, watch calmly. He figures its not the first, or the last, time they saw an overgrown man break down in alligator tears over losing another man. Jared repeats in his mind _Your pain isn’t special. Your pain isn’t special_ but he can’t control the near wailing sobs escaping his mouth.

Jensen wouldn’t be crying like this. Jensen was a pretty crier. Pretty even in that. Silent tears rolling down his face, dripping from his cheek. Jared only saw Jensen cry twice.

Soon, he wouldn’t remember. He wouldn’t care that he didn’t remember.

Two tiny white pills in his hands. Two tiny white pills in his hands on his couch. Chad is somewhere in the background, skinny blonde blur. He’s throwing red cups on the floor, spilling drops of beer and tequila over his hardwood floors.

Chad takes two of the red cups and pours beer in them. He takes two shot glasses, from somewhere in Jared’s cupboards, and pours tequila in them. The concoction sits before Jared. Two white pills.

“Corona Fog.” Chad speaks. Jared almost laughs. He’s pretty sure that that word has never been said which such a somber tone in the history of its existence.

“Bottoms up,” he hears himself say. Its him but its not him. Chad’s eyes look sad, distant. Two pills, one Corona fog.

Chad drinks along side him and then he is disappearing. The blue of his eyes are blank now, blank like they were blank when Sophia left him, and then his face was gone. The room starts to fade, like a drawing sketched backwards and Jared knows there were two pills. Now there were none and the door opens.

Ginger hair and glasses.

But even they are gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Jared is there but he isn’t there.

The scene starts off like a pencil sketch of a drawing. He feels his outline before the world comes alive in palates of color before him. For a second everything is in two dimensions, foreign and stuck in time, as if he was in a painting come to life.

The bright lights flash before his eyes, zooming from one corner of his vision to the next. The nausea comes next, intense, ears ringing, head spinning but when he opens his eyes, the room gains substance, grows heavier, becomes solid. Like a spiders weaving a thick web, each connection made the world more and more real until suddenly he wasn’t in a painting at all.

Suddenly Jared feels his fingers gripping the chair, old leather crackling under his fingernails. A strand of hair is stuck to his lip, but he doesn’t dare blow out of his face. His heart is hammering and he’s warm – perfectly warm – comfortable. He knows this place.

He knows these people.

This is _home_.

Jensen is sitting next to Jared in an identical leather chair, one elbow on the armrest, sinking slightly. His hand slightly occludes his face, pushing against his lip. To the untrained eye, Jensen looks bored. Nonchalant. Jensen is wearing bracelets around his wrists – thick leather strap, thin black strings, maybe three more, loosely hanging off his arm. He’s not looking at Jared and Jared isn’t convinced that Jensen could see him. He twitches his fingers, to see if he could reach out and touch him, but each movement feels like its underwater – too thick and murky, like he’s paralyzed in his dreams.

A voice – a woman’s voice – is somewhere in the background. She’s humming something and Jared relaxes his body, stares straight ahead. _Don’t fight it._ She might be singing those words, but Jared doesn’t know. Nothing sounds real except the shuffling of the balding older man sitting across the table from Jensen and himself.

 _Kripke._ The name comes immediately to Jared, though the thought seems like déjà-vu. Of course its Kripke. Eric Kripke. They’ve known him for years.

Eric’s elbows are on the table, his head resting against his clasped palms. The lights are dim and no noise comes from the set – even the sparse windows are dark. Its late. It must be the weekend – Jensen is usually dressed like Dean, loose jeans and plaid, hair tussled and freckles covered, when they stay after work to talk show logistics with Eric. But this is Jensen. Neater than the Dean version, well fitting clothes, freckles dancing along his cheeks and nose. Something is off. They shouldn’t be there if they aren’t working. Jared is acutely aware of the silence, and the fact that Eric seems like he’s… maybe praying? When Eric opens his eyes again, his expression is tense and almost pitying.

“I heard back early, boys, “he starts. Jared isn’t controlling it, not really, but smooth as butter his head rolls to his left and he’s looking at Jensen. Jensen is concerned and its so simple to read, its in his eyes, and the pair turn right back to Eric, understanding in their mutual discomfort. 

“With the writers’ strike, and the network merging we just couldn’t….” Erik sighs and looks them dead in the eyes, first Jensen then Jared.

“We’re canned.”

Jared stammers and stands up from his chair, too quick and too irate, as Jensen reflexively reaches out to him, hands wordlessly convincing him to take his seat.

“What do you mean – we’re canned? Like…”

“Cancelled. Yeah. They cancelled Supernatural. Gone. Kaput. Better polish up those resumes, boys.” Eric rubbed a hand over his rapidly balding head. His words come off as casual but his body screams defeat. Jared glances at Jensen.

Jared is overcome with sudden pity for their show runner, and fights the impulse to stand up and envelop the man in a bear hug. This was the man that gave them work, helped them develop as actors, the reason they met each other…

But neither one of them moved. It was the damnest thing – Eric only spoke a few words but the air became too thin immediately. It’s hard to breathe. Nothing had ever rang so definite, so final, and in this moment, they could only sit and slump ever-so-gently against one another.

Jared only knows of one thing to do when there’s bad news. He starts to formulate. He starts to talk a mile a minute, more to Jensen than to Kripke. Kripke isn’t even in the room anymore, his chair empty, but Jared it already talking, Jensen, as always, listening.

“First we sell the house. That’s a given. Then we’ll move to L.A., we should probably start looking for a house right away, actually by Burbank right, you have some buddies still in the area - We can audition, or we can get our own projects started. You can start directing more seriously...”

“Kinda gonna be hard… living in L.A. the way we lived here, Jay. Everyone will be paying attention.”

“You mean… you mean about us? Yeah. I mean. We’ll just come out, right?”

Jensen is silent. Not an agreeable silent, not a kind or loving silent. Jensen, Jared still remembers, has a thousand different kinds of silence.

This silent is slicing through Jared like a knife. He’s getting more and more agitated, rhythmically clenching his jaw, making his hands into fists. _Say something_ he pleads internally, but Jensen remains quiet, eyes averted.

“Jay, you know I don’t want that.”

Jared doesn’t control himself. “That’s fucking stupid, Jensen. Look – look at Neil Patrick Harris, or Matt Bomer, or… fuck, I don’t know. Elton John. Why can’t we…”

Jensen rolls his eyes and Jared takes a step forward, hands already shaking. Jensen’s shoulders are too loose, his eyes too distant. He doesn’t look interested in fighting. He doesn’t look interested at all.

“You know where I stand on this.” Jensen’s voice is harsh, final, and Jared is vibrating, blood pumping. He feels his face growing red.

“Its always this with you!” Jared’s quavering in his shoes and he feels the anger, feels it rolling through each vein and artery, felt it pulsing through his palms and he feels the impulse that he didn’t take, the impulse to shove Jensen, to act like the spoiled brat that he is and throw a tantrum. _Why can’t you give me what I want?_

“I got shit to do, Jensen,” the words are harsh, more razor sharp than Jared knew himself to be capable of, but they were coming so easy, like he’s always had this side to him, “I can’t be wasting my time.. You don’t want to be with me? Fucking fine. Move your shit out. I’ll make it on my own.”

The chairs, the curtains and the lights are dissolving and Jared is storming out of the trailer.

He’s ablaze and everyone is avoiding him. Except for Erin. Erin’s been on the cast for ages. She wasn’t scared of him. She said something – guess this memory thing didn’t replay perfectly – and the two of them go with the rest of the crew and some of the cast to his and Jensen’s favorite bar.

Two days later, Sunday afternoon Jared stumbles home on Chad’s shoulder, who showed up unannounced and stayed without welcome.

“Jensen!” Jared yells, voice hoarse from the previous nights escapade with karaoke. The house is still. Eerily so. Jared, head pounding, leaves Chad in his hallway and runs immediately upstairs, to his and Jensen’s shared bathroom. The Jared, the real Jared, replaying this memory, knew. He knew what he would see, but again, he ran straight to their shared bathroom.

The toothbrush was gone.

Jared runs back into their bedroom, throws open the closet until the doors violently hit the walls. Jensen’s clothes are gone. Some of the photos are gone.

Jared’s eyes widen, heart quickens, he’s moving faster than he can think, dialing the first person on speed dial –

“We are sorry. The number you are dialing has been disconnected…”

“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.” The words begin in Jared’s stomach and bark out through his throat.

Chad, who slumped against a wall, woke up immediately, shaking his head to the surroundings.

“What, Jay? What?”

“He’s gone.” Smaller, gentler. “Jensen’s gone.”

The phone fades away, and Chad faces away. Jared watches each piece of furniture disappear from his home. His toothbrush. His bed. The walls that held their pictures.

His last thought is Jensen, disappearing the weekend their show was cancelled. Cancelling his phone number. _He forgot me._

But that was all white noise soon enough, too.

* * *

“What do you think you’d wanna do if the show ended?”

It felt more natural this time. Like a spirit coming back into your body without ever knowing it was gone. Jared dives head first and didn’t even bother asking for air. He was always a quick learner.

The writer’s strike had been going on for weeks and Jared and Jensen are sitting in Jensen’s trailer. Their “waiting” routine. Jensen’s reading something – a book of some sort – and Jared’s scrolling through his phone. The second they got the green light, the boys were permitted to go back home, to their families. Both bags were packed. It was just up to Eric to say the word.

The answer to Jared’s question came unexpectedly – they had been sitting in silence for almost an hour at that point. Jared glances at Jensen, who’s acting like he hadn’t heard anything.

“I don’t know.” Jensen says. His voice is calm and face still pointed to his book, but his eyes are no longer scanning the pages and his jaw is tight.

“I think… I might not act anymore. After. You know. I like directing. Other stuff. Being an actor. Seems like the wrong circumstance.” And Jensen is looking at Jared and Jared almost gasps, his body losing its substance. His memory and his present self, observing, converge and he talks to memory Jensen, as if memory Jensen could hear him.

“You were trying to tell me something here. You were…” Jared sits back down and rubs the bridge of his nose, watching this version of Jensen. His body stiff, fingers gracing the pages gingerly, eyes still. He looks like he’s waiting for a reaction.

“All I told you – I didn’t even ask you what the circumstances were. All I told you is I wanted to keep acting. Be an action star.” Jared laughs, bitterly. He watches memory Jared move his mouth but the words are empty, insubstantial. He doesn’t remember. The same old recycled crap he wrote on all his school essays. _I want to be an actor. I want to win an Oscar. I want to be something different, someone different, every day. I want to make people happy._

“Say something. Tell me what I missed. What were you trying to tell me?”

But the book was disappearing and Jensen’s hands were now transparent. His fingers, calloused along the tips, were losing their texture, smooth lines, and then nothing. 

Jared hears himself speak but doesn’t hear himself speak. It echoes and grinds, like a tape recorder.

Jensen glances up from his book, a small, sad smile on his face.

Jared scoffs and crosses his arms. “Good riddance.” But something’s screaming in the back on his mind and seeing that sad smile…

* * *

“My Bloody Valentine. 3D.”

“No shit? Friday the 13th. The remake.”

“Shitty horror movies? We’ve gotta be better than that.”

“ _You_ did a play.”

“Shit that serious actors do. Thomas Kinkade.”

Jared leans over and grabs Dean’s token amulet hard, making Jensen lean forward in pain. Jensen glances up, all spiky hair and uncovered freckles, eyes electric.

“A Christmas Cottage was a classic. Christmas classic. That will be remembered. For hundreds of years.” Jared teases.

“Quiet on the set, you assholes.” Eric shouts, not bothering to cover the receiver of the phone he has plastered to his ear. Jared and Jensen burst out in giggles for a few seconds before they, quite professionally, clear their throats and make their faces elegantly stone-line.

“Take one” – Impala scene. Brotherly moment. Five minutes and Jensen and Jared are ribbing each other again, unaware of Eric brooding now, small calculated steps towards the impala.

“Storms a’brewin’, boys.” Eric stated matter-of-factly, rocking back on one heel and walking away. Eric was just a few years older than Jensen, barely old enough to be Jensen’s older brother but he talked in an old Western, seasoned cowboy/mayor/sheriff manner. An endless source of jokes for Jensen and Jared.

“Storm’s a brewin,” Jensen repeats back in his Dean voice and Jared chortles, banging his head into Jensen’s shoulder in an affectionate nudge.

“At least we’re back at work. Fuck, man, I thought that strike would never end.”

Jensen is looking at Jared but he’s not looking at Jared. He’s looking somewhere in the distance again.

“Sometimes I kind of wish it didn’t. We could have traveled forever. Across Europe, then Asia…”“I always wanted to hike Machu Picchu.” Jared chimes in.

“Hell yeah. We’d see everything, together.”

A pang of affection hits Jared so hard that it almost knocks him right out of the Impala and right out of this memory.

“It would have been perfect, Jen. But that’s not real. Avoiding our lives, our careers? That’s not real.”

Memory Jensen twitches his lips in disapproval, looking out the windows as if he was driving, seemingly engrossed in imaginary scenery passing in front of them.

“This isn’t real either.”

The chain around Dean’s neck, the amulet, is fading, then Baby, then the greens of Jensen’s eyes. “Storms a brewin’.” Jared repeats but he’s gone now too.

* * *

“You know,” Jared muses, fingers hooked through the fence at the top of the tower, body leaning heavily on the protective surface. He’s speaking at no one in particular, but he knows that Jensen can hear him, despite standing one step back, a little bit away from the only guard between him and 94 feet to the pavement.

The view isn’t half bad through. The sun is just starting to set, illuminating the city in a glimmering golden sheen. Jared always heard that the most beautiful sunsets were often in the most polluted cities, and could probably believe that with the sun caressing the concrete metropolis below him. He could barely see the cars rounding the square but knew. From up here it doesn’t look like the city of love, the city of culture, the city where art is beauty reigned down in history. He could barely see the arches of the buildings and couldn’t pinpoint the pyramid of the Louvre, despite them having visited the museum right before coming here.

“I always kind of imagined proposing here. Sunset, Eiffel Tower, city of love.”

“That sounds like something straight out of New York Minute.”

Jared pouts mockingly in Jensen’s direction, who is keeping his eyes trained on the city. The president’s hall, with the expansive fountain and long green yard seemed particularly enticing.

“I’m insulted, Jen. I’m a modern man now. 21st century rom com. Boy meets boy. Obviously in Paris.”

Jensen is rolling his eyes, the light illuminating the laughter lines around his mouth. Jensen has changed so much in the past few years. From the boy in JCPenney catalogues and The Days of Our Lives to the man here, rugged, reserved and breathtakingly beautiful.

“Oh Jen. Jenny.”

“Please don’t…”

“Jensen. Jensen Ross Ackles.”

Jared is down on one knee and people are gathering around them, some snapping quick pictures of their phones. Smiles all around. Jensen is covering his face but its clear that he’s beet red and a smile peaks out from beneath his fingers.

“Really, don’t.”

“Maybe…”

“Jared, I don’t…”

“You’re gonna be the one that saves me.”

Jared is completely tone deaf and the words start to carry a melody. Jensen is too shocked to step away, to say a single word.

“Cause after all,” Jared belts at the top of his lungs, and some of the crowd jumps. He hears some grumbles in the background as people start to leave the scene

“You’re my wonderwaLL!” Jared sings loudly and the crowd around them thins so fast he almost thinks they were never there at all. Its just him, on one knee, singing a cheesy ballad, and Jensen, hands over his face, still blushing. And smiling. His chest moves up sharply, like he’s stifling a laugh. 

Jared hops back up, jumping a few inches higher than he expected, face alight with laughter.

“Told you I’d get you back.”

Jensen’s biting his bottom lip, impossibly straight teeth cutting the edges, eyes away and head shaking and Jared, memory Jared and remembering Jared alike, has to hold everything back not to kiss him.

Not here. Not in public. Not on top of the Eiffel Tower.

And its so fucked up that he can’t have that. Because the person he loves is a guy. Because the person he loves is an actor. Because, he too, is an actor, and can never leave the limelight, not even here, on top of the Eiffel Tower, thousands of miles away from anyone that might know their names. They don’t get to have this. They never get to have this.

Jensen breaks him out of the thought before it really ruins the day.

“Come stand over at this measure thing, Sasquatch. This is probably the tallest anyone’s ever been on here.”

Jared glances around sheepishly – he is indeed the tallest person there at the moment, but what can that say about the other hundred plus years when he wasn’t around? Jensen may have a valid point and it makes him grin from ear to ear. Jensen and Jared wait out the crowd and wade over to the measuring stick at the Eiffel Tower.

“I gotta get a picture of this.”

Jensen puts the camera to his face and Jared feels himself cross his eyes and stick out his tongue.

And suddenly, he’s crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue at no one. Jared gasps and whirls around.

He could have sworn he came to the Eiffel Towel with _someone._ The people in the crowded space paid him no mind. He circled a few times – but there wasn’t a single familiar face there.

He’s alone.

_You’re gonna be the one that saves me. You’re gonna be the one that’s saves me. Save me. God, save me._

* * *

They’re sitting behind a tiny wooden table with a flower vase on top. Two wine glasses, huge and ornate, and a basket of bread sit before them. Jared can’t stop reaching for the real thin cracker-like wafers they keep bringing him and he’s not unhappy about it.

Jensen is looking at him but he’s not looking at him. He’s looking past the memory into the person who decided to forget the memory and arches his mouth downward, not necessarily in a frown but something bordering on disappointment.

“I thought by now you’d try to stop it.”

Jared is in the middle of chewing through another wafer when Jensen speaks. The words don’t fit, flow as well as they would if they happened in reality, but Jared knows Jensen’s voice. Knows the timber, knows the shape and sound of every letter, of every word that he makes. Doesn’t matter is he’s just making it up inside his head. It almost takes too long to click.

“Stop what?’

“You forgetting. I thought you’d stop it somehow.”

Jared pauses. The two of them are sitting on a rooftop. The scenery before them could be anywhere, really – dry hills, tall trees, concrete houses with red roofs cascading, almost rolling with the hills.

 _Tuscany, Italy. Jensen made you try a lot of wine since you insisted you didn’t get the hype. You weren’t even supposed to come here. It was Venice, Rome, Florence. But he insisted on the detour, h_ is mind supplies helpfully.

“I don’t see why I would.”

“This is where you learned to like wine. That’s a big part of who you are.”

“Its just wine,” Jared responds. He lifts the glass and plays the memory. Involuntarily, like in a lucid dream. Half-alive Jensen was memory Jensen again, and the movie starts to play again.

Jensen nods and smiles at the waiter who shows them the bottle. The man carefully uncorks it and pours enough for one solid swallow slowly into Jensen’s glass, rotating the bottle to prevent it from spilling. Jensen swirls the contents of the glass a few times and lifts it to his face, inhaling deeply. Jared’s fidgeting because every time anyone had ever poured him wine before, even when he ordered with Sandy, he just chugged it down.

This was tasting. This is how real classy people did it.

“Very good. Thanks. Can you bring us an assortment of cheeses, too? One soft, one medium, one hard. Chef’s choice. To share.”

“Yes sir,” The waiter nods and quickly leaves after pouring an appropriately sized glass of wine for them both. Jared shifts in his chair. He’s looking for something to say but his eyes find Jensen and he immediately wants to take a picture. Sunlight on his face, wineglass in his hands, he’s iridescent. Maybe Jared thinks too often that Jensen looks like someone straight out of a catalogue, but its true again. _Attractive Wine Tasters Weekly_. Maybe a tourism add for Tuscany. _Travel Here. Jensen Awaits._

Jared absentmindedly lifts the glass to his face and takes a huge mouthful of the red.

“Jay – JAY. What the hell – don’t – “ Jensen is staring at him, mouth agape, eyebrows raised like it’s the dumbest thing Jared had ever done. Except he hasn’t seen what Jared was about to do next.

Which is smile, showing his teeth as the wine kept in his mouth poured back into the glass.

“Jense. This tastes like shit,”

Jensen is shaking his head, already reaching over to dab the sides of Jared’s lips with his napkin, staining red. It tickles Jared’s mouth.

“Fucking idiot. You let the wine breathe. You let it flower. You wait for the cheese I ordered and you trust me, asshole.”

“I _do_ trust you, Jense. But I think you’re pulling this all out of your ass. I’ll drink it man, but don’t expect me to like it.”

“You don’t like it after the cheese, tell you what. We’ll go to the top of the Eiffel tower.”

“What?!” gasps Jared, voice unexpectedly full of glee, “But you’re terrified of…”

Jensen groans, “That’s how sure I am, okay? Just…” his voice softens and he looks into Jared’s eyes, “Just trust me.” And Jared knows he can. And always will.

Jensen’s already shoving bread into Jared’s mouth, eyes determined and mouth set, the expression he always gets when he knows he’s right.

“This is a good one. I’d like to keep that one.”

The memory continues. The waiter brings cheese to the table. Jared doesn’t remember which cheeses they are, only that they’re not like anything he’s ever tasted before and Jensen was right.

“How… how can I keep this one?”

“Did you give them anything? To make this moment forgettable? I could hide, if you didn’t give them anything.” Jensen spoke, almost monotone, almost as if this was a regular conversation that regular people had all the time.

Jared racks his brain, but all he sees are empty faces, empty rooms. Nothing means anything – he couldn’t hold on to a single solitary item and pin it to Jensen. Not of this moment. Definitely not of this moment.

“I’m really forgetting.” Jared concludes. He sounds sadder to his own ears than he expects.

“Do you want to stop it?” Jensen inquires.

“I’m still mad.” Jared admits.

“We had an agreement. Get rid of me. It’s the only way that this will work.”

“I don’t – I can’t –“

A jolt of electricity races through Jared’s spine and the memory disappears before his eyes. The wine, Jensen, the smelly cheese, Tuscany out the window…

He simply falls towards the floor, if it could be called the floor. Its simply three dimensional white space, a little cube to keep him in.

_“Whats going on?” its far away, like an echo playing through an ambient music machine, but he’s known Chad enough to recognize even the intonation of his voice._

_Male voice. “See this part of the brain that’s lighting up?”_

_“Right…” Chad is curt. Impatient._

_CHAD! Jared is calling him throughout the void but his voice takes no shape, isn’t carried. Jared grips his throat but nothing comes out._

_“That’s in a region we already erased. One of the first memories. Something he’s remembering is connecting to something that should be gone.”_

_“…Sure. Is that bad?”_

_Woman voice. “Not at all. We’re just going to erase it again. Clean it up.”_

_“Is he okay? Whats going on?” A different voice. An echo. A melody._

_“Goddamn it – his heart rate spiked to 150, you get out of here.”_

_“I’m not leaving him. You better fucking remember that.”_

_“Fuck. Fuck. Give him another dose of ketamine.”_

_And then there’s nothing. Not even the white cube. Not even the void. Darkness and peace. A vacuum of space and time and Jared almost never wants to wake up._

* * *

Sunlight is filtering through the blinds and Jared groans awake. Harley and Sadie are already at the foot of their bed, both heads rested on the mattress, watching Jared expectantly. Jared averts his attention from the pups for a minute, turning to his left, letting the giant comforter envelop him until his legs were intertwined with another pair.

Jensen is laying on his stomach, arms hugging a pillow. His lips are twisted and slack and a small pool of spit is layering at the bottom of the pillow.

“Jense….” Jared whispers. Jensen smacks his lips and grunts.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jared leans in closer, so his lips are brushing the stubble against Jensen’s chin. Jensen grunts again, pushes his face into the pillow. “Don’t.” he grumbles through the pillow.

“You know how I was gonna take Sandy to Europe.”

Jensen doesn’t respond. Heavy breaths are coming from the pillow and Jared rests a large hand on Jensen’s back. He begins to stroke the soft skin, eliciting goosebumps from the older man.

“Lets go. You and me. We can’t sit around and mope forever. Hey. What do you think?”

Jensen doesn’t move for a few seconds, but soon he’s slowly rotating in their bed so he could face Jared. Jensen is scruffy and with sleepy eyes, but even now he manages to look worried. 

“You want to take your special trip, the one you’ve dreamed up god knows when, with… me?”

Jared brushes his fingers through the fringe of Jensen’s hair, watching the sunlight catch and releases them from his fingers. There are bubbles in his stomach, the kind that he isn’t sure he’s ever felt before, not quite like this.

“Yeah, Jen. I love you. Wouldn’t want it to be with anyone but you.”

The pause between them is long, drawn out. Jensen’s eyes are open but not looking at Jared, looking somewhere beyond him. He purses his lips finally and smiles that billion-dollar smile. That once in a lifetime smile. That perfect Hollywood unfathomable rarity of a smile. Jared’s smile.

“Sure. Yeah. If you’re sure then I’m sure. Lets do it. Lets go.”

* * *

Jared is whining now, but underneath it is a feeling of absolute desperation and that same, heavy feeling he’s felt when… well. When Cindy rejected him for prom. When he studied really hard for a test and still doesn’t do well. When he really, truly cares about something but it all falls through.

“You said – if Thanksgiving went well…”

Most of the family has retired into the gigantic Padalecki house. The Ackles insisted on grabbing a hotel nearby, saying that both of their families together were a little bit much, much to Jared’s disappointment. This would have been the first holiday that him and Jensen really REALLY spent as a family together.

Not that his family, or Jensen’s family, knew the level of togetherness. Not that Jensen wanted to tell them.

Jensen lowers his voice, whispers harsh in the dimly lit living room. He’s already got one hand on his overnight bag, like he’s ready to jump out of the house any moment to join his family at the hotel. Hell, he probably is, if Jared knows anything about Jensen. 

“Did you ever consider,” the words hiss at Jared, and once again somehow Jensen has made him feel tiny, insignificant, like he’s not the bigger and stronger of the two men. But it was never really about being bigger, or stronger.

“That your family doesn’t want this? That they would rather we lie to them and they turn a blind eye than…”

“No!” Jared interrupts. His voice is just a boom louder and a creaks emanates from upstairs. His parent’s bedroom. The voice drops down a few decibels, back into a hush, but Jared has a hard time getting the words to come out clear with how hard he’s grinding his teeth. He breathes the stifled air between him and Jensen, but Jensen doesn’t let Jared get between him and the door.

“They know – know about me and Austin, know…”

“You were with Sandy! For years, man. She was at every family event, every holiday, every reunion. She was a daughter to your parents. Everybody loves Sandy. Did you consider even for a brief fucking moment that they thought Austin was… a phase? You wanna honestly fucking tell me that your down home Southern Momma isn’t inkling for some grandchildren? Who has a gay actor son in Texas?”

“Your parents do,” Jared snapped back, letting the sound get louder. The Ackles aren’t here. They can’t hear the secret that Jensen doesn’t want to tell them, not even by accident.

“They don’t THINK they do. That’s what this is about. And even if they do – even if they DO believe it, they’ll never admit it. Why do you want things to change? Jare – our families love each other. Me and you, we love each other. We have a good life. We have a good house. We have Harley and Sadie. What more do you want?”

Jared doesn’t even notice the tears forming until they’re rolling down his cheeks, wet and salty. He struggles to stay quiet. He was always the ugly crier in their… whatever this was. Relationship – Jared had assumed.

“I want this. All of this. I want us to spend the holidays together, to spend the night in the same room, in the same bed, with our parents knowing. I want to kiss you in public. Hold your hand when we go outside. I’m so fucking sick of lying to – “

“You’re in the wrong fucking career if you want to be out, Jay. We can’t do any of that shit. We have a good life. Us not being able to… be more public, that’s one of the choices we made. We did, Jared. You gotta realize that, man.”

Silence. Jensen glances towards the door and back at Jared, face hard, resolved. Jared doesn’t have any good arguments. Jensen is completely right, they agreed on this, and yet Jared is searching his brain for something, anything, to prove Jensen wrong. 

Jared should have known that this was the beginning of the end.

“Wait.” Jared says, but its not memory Jared, it’s the remembering Jared. The memory of Jensen lingers by the door, the way Jared wanted him, desperately wanted him to that night. But Jensen had taken one last glance around the empty living room, whispered, “See you soon, Jay. Merry Christmas,” and walked out.

But today, in this memory, Jensen lingers.

“I’m in love with you.” Jared repeats. Its his mantra, his manna, the one thing he truly knows is real. Up to this point, he was, is, in love with Jensen. There is no denying it. The most exuberant passions, the most painful pains, they were all tied to Jensen like a destiny knot. Red string to pinky.

“We could be happy.”

Memory Jensen flashes for a second, like a broken TV screen.

“We were happy.”

“Us being happy isn’t enough. You know that.” A chill descends down Jared’s spine. Briefly he feels the leather of a steering wheel under his hands. The window against his temple sends lightning bolts through his skull. Its over before it began.

He’s gone but not the way he was gone before. He’s gone, dissolved, and Jared feels the tug of the red string on his pinky like its tangible. _It is enough. What are you saying? You love me and I love you, and its enough. Fuck our families. Fuck our careers. Fuck everything else. Its me and you. Me and you against the world._

The red string is the last thing to dissolve and Jared bites the inside of his cheek, feeling the loss like a blow to the head.

* * *

Jensen is face down in the pillow, snoring softly as the rays through their blinds wake Jared. He opens his eyes, blinks a few times. Watches dust float throughout their room. He turns to Jensen, like he does every morning. Traces his fingers over Jensen’s back, his jaw. Jensen groans, the soft touch rousing him from sleep.

“Good morning, baby,” Jared whispers, kissing Jensen gently on the angle of his mandible, before carefully rolling out of bed. Jensen is cussing him out already, “Fucking morning breath asshole, waking me up every goddamn morning, fuck off, let me fucking sleep…”

Jared only chuckles. He throws on a pair of jogging pants and a sweatshirt, gets Sadie and Harley situated in their collars, and heads outside. Mornings in Vancouver are refreshing; he’s breathing big gulps of air, other joggers passing and waving in the morning. He’s slick with sweat and the kids are exhausted after the five miles round-trip.

He hops in the shower, only after smacking Jensen on his sleeping butt, getting a barrage of insults back. He laughs to himself and gets dressed.

Once the coffee is brewed and the bacon hits the pan, bed-headed, ruffled, grumpy Jensen is up, stumbling into the kitchen in his boxers. He stumbles past Jared, grabbing the cup of coffee Jared has already poured for him, and stops briefly next to Jared – who, on que, stops scrambling the eggs and leans over to kiss Jensen on top of his head. Jensen groans again, but sits down at the kitchen table with his coffee and phone in hand.

He browses the news. They eat in comfortable silence, bare legs brushing continuously underneath the table.

“Thank you for breakfast, Jay… you’re a great cook, you know, and I…”

“Please stop, Jensen – I hate all this praise! Just seeing you eat something besides coffee makes me happy.” Jared laughs.

Jensen puts away his and Jared’s plate, washing them in the sink before retuning, landing a big, morning breath kiss on Jared’s cheek.

“You make me happy,” he mouths against Jared’s cheeks, eyelashes brushing against Jared’s temples.

Jared places a hand on Jensen’s shoulder, eyes in tears, and its not the memory; the eggs, the bacon, all disappearing, “I don’t, Jensen. I don’t make you happy. I make you so unhappy you forget…”

“Forget what?” sleepy Jensen mimics.

But Jared doesn’t know the answer.

* * *

“This is my favorite place in the world,” Jensen starts.

“A fucking boat?” Jared clambers over the raining, long limbs clumsy on the slightly wet deck. He’s smiling, because this is very Jensen of Jensen to love. The open ocean.

Jensen’s igniting the engine and places his hands on the wheel, natural. He pulled out of the port in their rented motorboat, avoiding other boats and heading towards the sun. This weekend, they were in L.A., visiting Jensen’s old buddies from when he moved to Burbank. This was the first time they got to be alone all weekend and Jensen takes him on a goddamn boat?

“I want to get one of these, one day.” Jensen states, as they stall the boat on open water. The ocean was calm today. The boat rocked gently, lulling Jared to sleep.

“What, a boat? You know – you know what my granddaddy says are the best days of his life?”

Jensen rolls his eyes. He’s heard this one a million times, but Jared repeats it anyway.

“What were they, Jare? I’m dying to know,” Jensen replied sarcastically.

As if recited, Jared simply stated, “The day he bought his boat, and the day he sold his boat.”

They both laugh in unison at this old, ridiculous joke. Jensen tosses Jared a beer from the cooler, and Jared twists off the cap, taking a large swig of the bubbly liquid.

Jensen has his guitar with him. They take turns playing songs. Jared’s not that good yet, just picking it up from Jensen, and he plays Wonderwall, tone deaf and loud and Jensen just laughs and claps, eyes shining.

He lays down with the guitar in his hands, three beers in, and when he starts singing, the world stops.

Jared’s fingers almost slip and he brings out his phone to record it, god forbid he forget it. Jensen’s voice, like smooth whiskey, his hands handling the guitar as well as he handles Jared.

_I can make you satisfied in everything you do_

_All your secret wishes could right now be coming true_

_And be forever with my poison arms around you_

_No one’s gonna fool around with us_

_No one’s gonna fool around with us_

_So glad to meet you, Angeles_

“Jesus, man,” Jared whispered, as Jensen gets up and takes off his glasses.

“What?” he responds, clearly a little too humble. “You weren’t recording that, were you…”

“Jensen,” Jared grabs Jensen’s baseball cap and covers their faces as he kisses him, on the lips. First time they kiss in the open and Jensen smiles into it.

No one’s gonna fool around with us.

Except for us, Jared muses. Except for us.

* * *

When he comes into this memory, he’s slotted between satin sheets. Naked. Its light outside, illuminating inside the sheets enough to highlight Jensen. He’s pressed against Jared’s skin, lips gently grazing against his shoulder blades, fingertips trailing lines against his spine, to his ass. Jared breathes out, shaking. He feels Jensen, hard against his ass, and he’s filled with such an incredibly need he can barely form words.

Jensen’s hands make it back to the nape of his neck, fingers intertwine with chestnut hair, getting longer now – _the way he likes it_ – and he’s pulling gently, forcing a small moan to escape Jared’s mouth. He’s on the verge of begging, closing his eyes.

‘I can’t relive this memory, please. Please. Don’t let me remember this time.’ Jared begs but it becomes more vivid, colors bleeding into each other, sensations amplified, each touch a burst of electricity, each goose bump static, every hair, muscle, cell of skin alive under Jensen’s touch, his breath. Jensen’s stubble brushes against Jared’s neck and Jensen starts landing soft kisses against his jawline, kisses against his check, soft against his lips until they became more ravenous, labored, Jensen’s sweet, wet tongue inside his mouth, hips rocking into each other.

Why Jensen insisted on them waiting to fuck for this long, Jared still wasn’t sure. This display of horny teenage dry-humping was almost a daily occurrence and each day Jared grew more and more desperate, each night being a separate wet dream where Jensen finally takes him and fucking ruins him.

Today’s the day, lucky for Jared. He can’t help but smirk at the memory, the need Jared giving off so desperate and palpable. Jensen knew exactly what he was doing; knew how to make Jared want him, how to drive him crazy.

Jensen’s grinding against him, gently, the skin of his stomach grazing his cock, leaving trails of precum along Jensen’s stomach. He didn’t seem to mind as his mouth trailed downward, kissing along each nipple, along each hip bone, slowly along his happy trail, nudging ever so softly against the tip of his cock –

“Just – Jense, please…” Jared whined, feeling Jensen smile against his, landing soft kisses along the shaft, base, onto his ass. Jared prepared, of course, but still felt embarrassed as Jensen’s tongue grazed his hole – fingers working open the lube left on their nightstand. He was gentle – always so gentle – slowly working him open, mouth on his cock. Jared had to bite his lips to stop from moaning, needy, gracious moans.

 _Fuck, thank you, thank you, thank you for loving me like this_ the gentle part of Jared crooned, while another part, the carnal part, wanted Jensen’s cock deep inside him, until he could taste him in his throat, wanted his teeth to leave marks on his throat, fucking ruin him for everything and everybody else in this world –

This time, though, he didn’t stop.

“This time, Jay?” Jensen whispered. Jared could barely stop himself from coming at the suggestion, only nodding eagerly, legs splayed. Vulnerable for Jensen. How he’s always been.

Jensen removed his fingers and replaced his mouth back on Jared’s collarbone, lubing himself up at the same time. He bit softly, releasing small whimpers from Jared’s mouth.

Jensen keeps kissing, softly whispering against Jared’s skin as he pushed his legs back and nudged the tip of his cock into Jared’s ass, slowly, letting him whimper through it, until he was able to get his whole – fuck, huge, unbelievably huge – cock all the way in. He inched slowly out, leaving Jared slack mouthed, almost drooling – “Fuck, please,” he groaned before Jensen rocked, gently, back in.

As they started rocking against each other, discomfort and pain morphed into unbelievable pleasure, and even Jensen, stoic Jensen, was letting out small whimpers, burring in Jared’s shoulder. Jared, himself, was hungry, nails scratching gently at Jensen’s back, the need for him, him, HIM, permeating every thought, sense – he’s looking for his mouth again, mouth wet, needing and Jensen doesn’t last long, moans inside Jared’s mouth, wraps a harsh hand around Jared’s throbbing, painful cock and jerks him quickly as Jared bites his lips, cumming simultaneously.

As they come apart, Jared blissed out and smiling, Jensen makes a sour face.

“Look at this fucking mess,” and they both burst out laughing, falling back into each other’s sweat-glistened bodies, mouths meeting, dry but so fucking happy.

So fucking happy.

Fucking happy.

Happy.

* * *

“I have a surprise for you,” Jensen says as they finish their frozen pizza and were getting ready to retreat to their respective rooms for the evening.

“No way, dude. You finally coming out to me?” Jared jokes, and Jensen shoots him a harsh look.

“Come on, man. Works been crazy, when the last time we went out, did something, just the two of us?”

Jared wasn’t ready to stop egging Jensen on, though.

“We do stuff, the two of us, every day. We LIVE together.”

Jensen cuts in, “This is a temporary arrangement.”

“Either way, we just ate dinner together and watched Jeopardy. We’re basically married.”

Jensen smirks. “Then, lets call this a much needed date, okay? Tomorrow, 8 am.”

Jared opens his eyes wide in mock shock, “8 am?! For Jensen?? Sleepy little Jensen?! On a Saturday?”

“… urgh,” Jensen throws his hands up into the air in mock exasperation, though he smiles at Jared, and Jared knowingly smiles back.

“Thanks,” he says sincerely. “8 am. I’ll be ready.”

Jared has never seen Jensen in cargo shorts, and he feels blessed on this very special day to ogle such a sight.

“What?!” Jensen defends, opening his Velcro pockets in succession. “They’re – they’re sporty, man! Can keep all my things in here!”

Jensen’s washing the dishes after having made them scrambled eggs with bacon and toast, and Jared’s on cloud nine. Jensen doesn’t wake up early, sure as hell doesn’t eat breakfast, much less make it.

They’re laughing the whole way up.

The trail is crowded with locals and tourists alike. Jensen’s wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, classic Jensen. Jared doesn't take the usual precautions - out here, people generally don't recognize them. 

Jensen sure as hell doesn’t exercise either, especially not this early in the morning. But he takes Jared on this trail, among the evergreens and hemlock trees, to bask in the sunlight, listen to the birds signing, and gaze over mountain peaks.

They sit down at the summit, on an edge of a cliff overlooking the water.

“This was too easy,” Jared laments, elbowing Jensen in the ribs playfully.

“Just wanted you to have a taste before I really exhaust you,” Jensen shot back, eyes crinkling.

Jared nudges Jensen’s thigh with his own, and neither man moves. Small blue houses littered the Deep Cove, and a sailboat sailed along the windless waters.

“I want to end up there,” Jensen muses, pointing to the small blue houses, the tiny decks, the boat. “You know, small house, a boat, somewhere far away. Where nobody knows who I am.” Jensen’s voice is soft.

“You know boats are really expensive and a ton of upkeep, right?”

“Jare, come on…”

“You know what my granddaddy says?" Jared reconsiders. "Actually, you know? This, this feels like you. You deserve that."

They sat and looked ahead for a few more minutes before Jensen takes off his backpack and starts to rummage around.

“Lets have lunch, Sasquatch.” Jensen pulls out a small container from his Camelback backpack. Two beers, two sandwiches, two bananas.

“And you cut the crusts off?! Jensen, you’re really my dream girl,” Jared jokes, twisting his torso to wrap Jensen in a hug. He rests his head against Jense's shoulder, breathing against his neck and watching the hairs stand up with goosebumps before pulling away.

“Just eat your fucking sandwich,” is all that Jensen says. But he's smiling.

When they got home, Jared calls their Chinese place, and Jensen opens a bottle of wine. One of his fancier bottles, hidden deep in the cupboard. They take turns showering.

Jared watches himself use Jensen's shampoo and wants to turn this memory off. "Don't you understand,' he wants to scream to himself, humming in the shower, "He leaves you! He leaves you."

Jared stretches on the ground, turning off the TV.

“Well, that was a pretty dope first date, dude,” Jared jokes.

“Guess I’ll have to give you a good night kiss for being such a swell date,” Jared laughs, placing both hands over Jensen’s face, the way he’s done hundreds of times before for the cameras.

But this time there were no cameras. There was only Jared and Jensen, and Jensen, with his wine stained lips, wasn’t having any of it.

“You’re always pretending to kiss me – what’s up with that?” Jensen teases. Jared's pinky, as usual, grazes the side of his lips. For the first time, he looks Jensen in the eyes and wets his lips.

His pinky moves at a wider ark, rubbing itself against Jensen’s pink lips, tracing the outline of his mouth.

“Probably because I want to kiss you,” Jared chokes out, trying to laugh through it, but he doesn’t leave Jensen’s eyes, and his hands don’t stop moving. Jensen blinks, eyelashes fluttering, so fucking beautiful, and Jared can’t help but try to map out the constellation of freckles along his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. Commit it to memory.

“Is… is it?” Jared pleads, nudging his eyes towards Jensen’s mouth. Jensen’s still, silent, and Jared’s mind starts racing for that split second, considering what he’s doing – Fuck. Fuck Fuck fuck.

‘This is my coworker. My best friend. I’m about to fuck up everything between us. Everything.’

Jensen barely nods, and that’s all it takes for Jared to dip down, place his lips at the very edge of Jensen’s mouth, kissing a stray freckle. The warmth of Jensen’s breath, his lips tasting like strawberries and wine, wet… Jared can’t touch them yet, kisses the philtrum of his lip, kisses the dimple in his right check, the freckles on his nose...

“Jay – “ Jensen whispers, barely audible, “Hey, hey, hey, its okay,” and Jared’s mouth is on his, soft, his own lips chapped and he’s kicking himself, wishing he was more ready, but Jensen takes over, moves in, wetting Jared’s lips with his tongue, softly biting his lower lip before coming in for another kiss.

“Jense, I’m in love with you,” Jared huffs into Jensen’s mouth. Jensen’s eyes are still closed. “Been in love with you,” Jared pants, “Since that first day. First time. Your laugh. Most amazing fucking thing I’ve ever heard, Jense…”

“Shut up,” Jensen whispers against his lips, sending lightning against Jared’s spine.

“Fucking idiot,” he breathed, “I’ve always wanted you. Always loved you. You had to take your sweet goddamn time…”

Jared dives in to cut him off. He’s smiling against Jensen’s mouth, fervent, kissing his nose and eyelashes and neck and mouth again.

He waited two years to be able to say this, to touch him, and…and…and…

Jensen’s eyelashes against his cheeks were the first to go, then his scent, then the tingling of his mouth. Then his hands, gracing his mouth, his hair, his jaw, his neck – smudged charcoal lines and then it was nothing, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Jared stares ahead, not meeting Jensen’s eyes.

“Why did I leave her, dude? We’ve been together for three years. Three years. My family knows her, loves her. She had a dress picked out. Why? Why couldn’t I just marry her?” Jared’s voice catches and eyes well up, but he stares ahead.

Jensen sits down at the side of the tub, eyes averted from his nakedness, only looking at his face.

“You’re really scruffy, man. On your face, I mean.”

“I know. I just. I can’t. I can’t get up from this tub right now. I'll shave later. Leave me alone.”

“Hey, what if – ?” Jensen turns off the cold water and Jared, as if waking up from a dream, starts to shiver. He sits up, head resting against the cold walls of his bathroom, still unable to meet Jensen’s eye. Jensen grabs a towel from his rack and hands it to him. Jared immediately covers his junk, leaving strands of his hair to drip cold water into his eyes.

“I can’t – I don’t know what to do,” Jared blubbers, snot dripping from his nose and tears, hot and wet, mixing with the drips from his hair, dribble down his face. Jensen doesn’t change his expression, only traces his hands over Jared’s cheeks, swiping at the tears.

“Can I?” Jensen asks. Jared, even now, doesn't know what Jensen was asking for, what he really wanted, but the truth is, in that moment, Jensen could have done whatever the fuck he wanted to Jared. And he’d thank him.

Jensen grabs Jared's shaving cream and razor from his sink. On his knees, kneeled against the tub, Jensen sprays the foam into his own hands before lathering it onto Jared’s cheeks, jaw, neck, mustache. Gently, Jensen starts with his mustache, smooth strokes against scratchy skin. He rinses the razor in the sink, warm water, every few swipes. Careful and deliberate, he grazes over Jared’s cheeks, wordless.

“Lift your chin,” Jensen commands, and Jared looks towards the ceiling, obeying. As Jensen swipes along his neck, fingers pulling at his skin, wrist against his Adam's apple, he feels himself slowly getting hard against his thighs. He’s praying Jensen doesn’t see as his heart starts beating faster, skin heating up against Jensen’s touch.

Jared laughs in this memory. He told himself, he remembers, that he must have been so touch starved after breaking up with Sandy that even such a friendly action must have set him off.

Jensen warms a towel under the hot water in his sink and uses that to wipe away the rest of the shaving cream. The warmth of the towel and Jensen’s confident hands – before Jared could stop himself, he puts his hands over Jensen’s, before pulling away immediately.

“Wow, I’m – I’m so sorry. I just. It feels so nice. Thank you. I can’t –“

“Shh,” Jensen shushes. He moves slower now, using the towel to wipe around his ears, under his nose, around his neck. When he finished, he simply stood up, rinsed the towel, and left the bathroom.

Jared, now completely hard under the towel, locks the door. He turns the shower back on, and for the first time in months, can get himself off.

‘Fucking idiot,’ Jared muses, as his bathroom tiles start to fall around him, disappearing once they hit the ground, ‘You know exactly why you left Sandy. You know.’

The next day that Jensen comes back, he’s got an overnight bag.

“What – “

“You know, since you’re such a big baby, I guess someone needs to take care of you, and I’m…”

“Jensen, you don’t have to.”

“I know.” Jensen said this so gently, his eyes on Jared’s, and Jared’s ready to evaporate.

“But I’m not letting you do this alone.”

The overnight bag becomes boxes. “You don’t have a proper coffee machine,” and “where’s your toaster oven,” and there’s an inflatable mattress in his “office room” on the first floor. And Jensen’s coconut shampoo is in his shower.

And Jared knows damn well why he left Sandy.

* * *

Sandy is sitting at Jared’s kitchen table, sipping on her coffee. She’s absently flipping through a wedding magazine. Even though it's first thing in the morning, she’s glowing, chestnut hair cascading over her bare shoulders.

She’s beautiful.

Jared sits across from her, picking at his fingernails. He always needed to fill the void of their silence, with song or babble, getting her to talk about her dance studio or any auditions that she might have coming up. They barely see each other; rarely talk, and yet, Jared finds himself with nothing to say. Instead, he concentrates on the ruffles of Sandy’s pink pajamas, outlining the straps of her top.

Its very cute. Very her.

“I can’t do this.”

Sandy slurps loudly on her coffee, and flips another page, not looking up from the magazine.

“Can’t do what, sweetie?”

“Please, Sands. Can you listen - I’m serious.”

Hearing the tone in his voice, Sandy sets down her coffee and closes the magazine, training her chocolate eyes onto Jared’s face, eyebrows raised in concern. She leans forward and stretches out her hand, placing it on top of Jared’s. He wants to flinch away, but doesn’t. Doesn’t want to add insult to injury.

“I can’t marry you.”

The world freezes on Sandy’s face, eyes scrunching, mouth twisted in disbelief. She’s not moving, but Jared puts a hand against her face, examines her. All these years together, unbelievable, funny, amazing Sandy.

“I don’t get why I’m seeing this memory.” Jared says, seemingly to nobody. He controls his body in this flash of space and time, looking around the room. Looking for a hole in the Matrix. Is anybody listening?

“Why this memory? This has nothing to do with Jensen. I didn’t agree to erase Sandy.”

Sandy comes alive, movements almost robotic. Her mouth moves in a whisper, but the voice isn’t hers. It’s a man’s voice, rhythmic and high pitched, familiar enough but foreign enough to knock Jared onto the floor in surprise.

"This has everything to do with Jensen," the voice responds, matter-of-fact.

Jared shakes his head. “Jensen is my best friend, and my coworker. Why would I…”

Sandy opens her mouth wider and static emanates from her mouth. The chatter of voices beyond the static can barely be discerned, but one voice Jared would recognize anywhere.

Whats going on? _Chad?_

The voice from before, the man’s voice, comes through clearly now. But he’s not speaking to Jared and Sandy’s lips aren’t moving, her mouth a megaphone for another world.

“At this point, they were never together.”

Chad clicks his tongue.

“So how the fuck am I supposed to explain it to him when he wakes up? Hey good morning assface, you left your fiancé and dream girl, but not sure why! Good luck!”

“We’re going to send her the letter,” the older man replies calmly, “So she’ll know why he’s calling.”

“What if… she wants to take him back? Now that he’s rid of… you know.”

“Not that common of a problem, actually,” a woman responds this time, “Most people don’t like the idea of being a second choice.”

Jared groans and rolls his eyes. “How is Sandy second choice?!” he yells into her open mouth, “If she’s second choice, who's first?!”

The voices quiet down instantly.

Chad’s whisper is the first thing to break the silence.

“Can he… hear us?”

“No, no…” the older man whispers back, less confident than before.

“Clem, can you administer 5mg of Haldol IV to Mr. Padalecki? He might be waking up a bit, that’s all. Its dangerous to interrupt the dream sequence now…”

The older man’s voice trails off and Sandy, as if snapping out of her trance, is already storming into his room, rummaging in drawers. Jared stands defenselessly, just like he did the day it happened, standing in the kitchen while Sandy yelled, when she threw her engagement ring at him, and she, tear stricken, slammed his front door.

White walls, everything is dripping like candlewax, and Jared lets it take him. Nothing left for him here.

* * *

He can’t get hard. That’s… super weird.

Sandy, eyes glistening, red from wakefulness, a sacrifice to see him in Vancouver on such short notice, is completely naked in front of him. Perky little breasts, soft hands, wet lips, she’s straight out of a wet dream and wants him and came here to surprise him but he can’t get hard.

“Babe, Sands, please…”

After thirty minutes of this charade, Jared finally puts his hands to block himself from Sandy, and gently nudges her away.

“What’s going on?” she asks, voice still sultry but now laced with concern. “This never happened before. Are you…?”

“Its been a crazy week,” Jared lies, “I’ve been so busy, baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He wants to keep apologizing, but he doesn’t know why.

Sandy stands up and ruffles through her suitcase, bringing out a pink tank-top and shorts; pajamas. She gets dressed quickly and jumps under the covers with Jared, who doesn’t move, doesn’t dare.

She’s lightly scratching his chest with her nails, intertwining her legs with his and landing a soft flutter of kisses on his shoulder.

“Its okay, darling. Its okay. Hey – it happens, okay? I’ll be right here tomorrow. I’ll always be right here.” Jared rotates his head to face Sandy, nuzzled against him. Tiny, featherlike next to him. It makes his skin crawl. And when he catches the glimmer of her engagement ring, he almost can’t get out of bed fast enough.

“I – I need to walk the kids, real quick. I heard Sadie whining – “

“I didn’t hear anything,”

“I’m more sensitive to it, I guess…”

“I can come with you, if you want. Its pretty late.”

“No,” he answers harshly. “No,” he repeats, softer. “You’re already all warm in your pajamas. I’ll be back soon.”

Jared throws on a t-shirt, sweatshirt and running pants. Once outside the room, he lets out a deep breath and corrals Sadie and Harley, both sleeping, to get up and go for a 1 am walk

The streets are empty, the only sound consisting of Harley and Sadie panting and their claws hitting the pavement. Jared walks beneath each street light, full of energy. He wants to start running, sprinting, but he controls himself and evens his breathing.

He doesn’t even notice his hands are sweating until he takes his phone out of his pocket. Speed dial.

One ring, and a gravelly voice picks up the phone. Its distorted, static. Jared doesn’t know who he’s called or why. The voice doesn’t make sense, doesn’t say discrete words, but Jared feels himself loosening, his stride slowing. He’s laughing, but doesn’t remember a joke.

He’s smiling, but doesn’t remember why.

But it’s the feeling. Swirls of color behind his eyes, warmth and heat radiating from his chest. The breeze in his hair, the sprinkle salty ocean mist, the scent of coconuts.

* * *

Jared's waving Jensen over, hiding behind his trailer. The crew is bustling in the foreground, catering is being set up, and Jared has something to show Jensen.

Jensen looks at him inquisitively and half-jogs in his direction. Jared grips Jensen's leather jacket and twists him around, so the two of them are face to face in the shady corner behind Jared's trailer.

"You call me back here to show me your dick, or what?" Jensen whines in mock annoyance.

"Maybe later, sweetheart," Jared quips. Instead, he stars digging inside of his pockets of his oversized brown coat, until he pulls out a little black box.

Jared opens it, to reveal a simple engagement ring with, for a guy his age, has to be a pretty size-able diamond.

"What do you think, man? I'm gonna propose to Sandy next week.."

Jensen clears his throat and shrugs Jared off, breaking their huddle.

"I don't know shit about engagement rings, man, I don't know. I'm sure she'll love it."

Jared trails after Jensen, "Don't tell me you haven't looked at anything for Danni, man, I know that girl wants to lock you down."

Jensen snorts. "Not much to lock down. Gotta go run lines." Jensen picks up his pace and practically slams the door in Jared's face.

Jared knocks on his trailer door, but doesn't get a response.

"You know I want you to be my best man, right?" Jared called under the door.

Jensen suddenly flings the door open and gets within an inch of Jared. The older man's shorter but his body language is asking for a fight and Jared backs away in surprise.

"You know, if either one of us could use running lines, its you. Get the fuck out of my face." Jared's too shocked to say anything but he backs away and slumps into his own trailer.

As he sits down on his couch, he examines the box, the ring one more time and furrows his brow. "What’s his problem?" Jared asks himself.

He sets the ring down next to him on the couch and leans back, placing his palms over his eyes.

"The real question you should be asking yourself," Jared chimes in, ready to square up against memory Jared too, "Is why you bought a ring within these past two weeks? What changed, dumbass?"

The Jared in the memory didn't think that, of course. He only knew that the feeling in his stomach, the butterflies threatening to burst out his throat, could be tamed.

* * *

Jared paces around the house. White walls, empty hardwood floors. Sandy is standing at his side, her mind already going a mile a minute. She’s talking, but Jared’s not listening – instead he chooses to absentmindedly scratch his pup’s bellies.

They’ve been with Sandy for the past two years. He’s missed them.

“And we could have this as an accent wall – what do you think, sage green, or more this champagne color?”

Jared doesn’t respond, and soon feels Sandy’s petite hands in his hair and scratching his back.

“Lets go buy some furniture, yeah? Make this place feel more like home?”

“Babe – I have a long drive tomorrow,” Jared lands a small peck on Sandy’s lips, “Can you do it without me?”

Sandy’s face brightens, as if that’s exactly what she was hoping to hear.

“’Course, baby. You go paint those cottages. I’ll pick out all the things,” she taps the tip of his nose with a fingertip, “That I know my baby likes.”

“Thank you dahlin,” Jared jokes, full Texas drawl, and it spurs a sweet giggle from his girlfriend.

Jared’s about to hop into the shower, when Sandy yells to him from the living room, “Hey, you still want to go to Jensen’s play on Saturday?”

Jared walks back into the living room, trying to put a face to Sandy’s annoyed tone.

“Hell yeah I wanna go! What do you mean?”

“Well babe, we have this whole house to get situated, and we haven’t spent a whole lot of time together, me and you, recently…”

Jared cuts her off, “We’re going. Its opening night.”

He has to stop himself from slamming the door to the bathroom.

* * *

Jared can hardly contain himself, hands jittery and mouth in a permanent smile. In his finest work, he keeps his voice steady.

Jensen, on the other end of the phone, sounds concerned. He keeps sighing.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, man. I can’t – I can’t share a stage with Lou Diamond Philips. He’s – he’s fucking Lou Diamond Philips.”

“Jensen, hey. You auditioned for this role. You’ve been pacing the trailer and running lines with me for weeks, remember?” Jared bites his lip. “You deserve this more than anyone else. In the world, Jensen.”

Jensen stays silent. “You always know what to say, Jare. God, my parents bouta be here. They’ve never – I’ve never. I’d rather be taking a test naked.”

Jared laughs. “That can be arranged – immediately after.”

Jensen chuckles and breathes deep.

“Thanks, man. Hey, good luck on set tonight. Its been – its been weird without you here.”

Jared smiles.

“I know. I’ll see you soon. Good luck.” Jared shuts his flip phone. He nudges his way through the theater, Sandy in hand. Donna and Alan were already sitting down. Donna has her camera out, one eye shut, zooming in on the stage, while Alan leafs through the programme. Danneel is sitting on the other side of Jensen’s father, seemingly engrossed in the booklet, eyes averted from Jared.

Jared puts a large hand on Donna’s shoulder and she jumps just a little, then lowers her camera, beaming brightly.

“Oh baby, come here,” she gushes, pulling on Jared’s hands as he starts to giggle. She takes his cheeks between her thumbs and forefinger and squeezes while Jared squints his eyes.

“Jensen is gonna be so happy you’re here, sweetheart, bless your heart!” She exclaimed, fanning herself with the programme. Alan barely lifts his head, but extends his hand, which Jared shakes firmly.

“Son, good to see you.” Alan says gruffly.

“Well now sir, I see where Jensen gets his vibrant personality!” Jared muses and Alan almost smiles. Jared reaches into his jacket pocket, glances around suspiciously.

“Close your eyes and reach out your hands, y’all. I got a surprise.”

Donna and Alan looked at each other and close their eyes, holding out their hands. Jared pours Skittles into both of them.

“Sugar for my sugars,” Jared drawls and Donna enters another fit of giggles, her cheeks pink.

The lights dim and the room quiets down. Sandy is saying something to Jared, but he can’t hear, eyes trained on the stage. His heart is racing and he feels hot all over – he has to take off his jacket, he has to move, but he’s paralyzed.

He’s – unbelievable, Jared feels like he’s holding his breath, the hour passing by like seconds. He’s verbose, movements smooth on stage, voice strong. The same lines that they’ve gone over, in his trailer, over the phone, a hundred times over, now ring fresh, new, beautiful. Jared finds himself smiling, heart racing.

He’s the first to jerk upward as the play ends, clapping as hard as he physically can. Sandy tentatively stands up after him, followed up Danneel and Alan and Donna. He’s whistling and howling and clapping and all eyes on him. But it might as well just be him and Jensen in this entire building. But Jared’s energy is contagious – some laugh at his antics, but most join, clapping louder.

The curtain opens again and Jared sees Jensen. Jensen is searching the crowd, eyebrows furrowed, hands clasped tight in front of him. The second Jensen’s eyes meet Jared, his face twitches. Twitches from its flat, calculated impression to what Jared knows – has known, has seen hundreds of times, that embarrassed, cute, amazing smile – he’s almost yelling at this point, pumping his fists in the air. Jensen averts his eyes but Jared doesn’t mind.

When Sandy puts her hand on his leg, he jerks away, instinctively. He’s clapping and cheering and god forbid Jensen sees Sandy, thinks that this is about her, or anything at all other than being about him.

As he makes it on to the stage, he throws his arms around Jensen, but something feels different in this hug. Its heavy. He rubs his hand down his back, pride exploding out of him. He licks his lips and holds on to Jensen’s face. Jensen’s expression changes, shocked. Alan, Donna, Danneel, Sandy, they are all standing around them, chatting, laughing. Jensen doesn’t move to break free of Jared’s hold. Jared doesn’t move his hands from Jensen’s face. He stares at him, hard. He’s done it hundreds of times before, but something feels different this time. Jensen isn’t moving away. He’s not laughing. He’s not swatting his hands or pretending to bite at his fingers. He’s just looking at him, soft, mossy-eyes. Looking up at him, breathing even.

Jared licks his lips and rubs his thumb on the underneath of Jensen’s face.

“Will ya ever keep your hands off him?!” – Jared’s trance breaks as Chad throws his arm over his shoulder, forcing him down into a headlock. Jensen starts to laugh and dusts off his shoulders, immediately whisked away by his family.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Chad grits through his teeth, all the while noogying him and laughing out loud for everyone else to hear.

Later, at the bar, sitting next to Chad, he rubs his neck, a silence between them.

“Dude, not to be a dick, but… people are starting to talk. Sandy’s friends are giving her shit that her boyfriends in love with his co-star. So. You know. Tone that shit down.”

Jared takes a sip of his beer, the tips of his ears red.

He does go overboard.

He keeps going overboard.

He just. Doesn’t want to stop going overboard.

Wants to drown in it. 

Jared replays the moment in his head. Over and over. The silence. The thumb, under Jensen’s chin. His breath, hitching, heart aching.

Jared opens his laptop and immediately begins to search for engagement rings.

* * *

Jensen jumps on Jared for a piggyback ride. The cast has been eating it up, and Jensen’s getting better at hopping on him. He’s whispering in Jared’s ear.

“You get off on this, don’t you? People watching?”

“Dude, you might pretend I’m the one who wants this but I feel your dick against by back!”

Jensen jumps down and swats at Jared, who splays his hands out and goes right for Jensen’s ticklish sides.

“I feel like you have a crush on me, Big Jay.” Jensen said through a smile, though it didn’t extend to his eyes.

Jared places a dramatic hand over his own chest, and, noticing the onlookers, quipped back,

“Sure, dude. I’ll let Sandy, my GIRLfriend of MANY years, know about my big gay crush on my co-worker!”

The people around them laugh, but Jensen doesn’t.

* * *

Jensen is constantly surprising Jared.

He’s pounding his fist against his hand three times and making scissors, his lips pursing, the most serious face he’s ever seen the man make, and it takes everything in him not to absolutely lose it.

He’s so fucking funny.

Jared, yeah, he tries to be funny. But Jensen? Comedic genius. And he doesn’t even have to try.

He can’t wait to get in to work. Sure, he’s doing 16 hour days – but with Jensen, it flies by so damn fast.

Now that he’s let him in, damn it, Jensen is – god, he’s unbelievable.

 _Pretty_ Jared thinks before immediately swatting the thought away. But that look, the over-acting, that big leather jacket on him, its all Jared could do but not push him away.

“Man, I’m bulking. I deserve a shirtless scene. Not only is it a right, it is a privilege for all the ladies…. To see what they’re missing out on.”

“You’re a piece of shit.”

The two of them lounge in Jared’s trailer. Jared is working with free weights, pumping each bicep, the triceps, sporadic push ups and crunches before appearing on camera. Scrawny pretty boy from Gilmore Girls no more. And for some reason, when Jensen’s in the room, his workouts are even better. He gets more reps, he can lift more weight, and he never gets discouraged. Jared nods to himself. _Its good to have healthy competition_ , he thinks.

Jared continues to do his reps. Jensen looks up from his script.

“How are you going to cry?”

Jared stops and looks up at Jensen inquisitively.

“Cry?”

Jensen taps the script with his free hand, face contorted in a frown.

“You know. The crying scene.”

Jared squints his eyes and nods to himself.

“I’ll probably just think about Harley or Sadie being put down. Or something bad happening to my parents or to Sandy.”

Jared pauses.

“What do you think about, when you have to cry?”

Jensen clears his throat.

“It’s a big scene day for you – a shirtless scene AND a crying scene?”

Jared scrunches his nose and flexes, striking multiple poses as Jensen shakes his head at him.

“I’m like fucking Ryan Gosling over here!”

The sex scene is uncomfortable.

First of all, Jared has to put his dick in a dick sling and tape it against his legs, so poor Emmanuelle wouldn’t be harassed by his involuntary body reactions. That’s fine. He’s had to dick-sling before.

But this weird Pam-like spray they put on him to make him glisten?

Slippery as hell.

Jensen’s laughing his ass off on the side and Jared can only glower.

“You just wait, Ackles!” Jared calls out.

“I’m gonna show you what real acting looks like!” Jared shouts again, just to make sure Jensen’s eyes are on him.

She’s not a bad kisser, Emmanuelle. She’s rough for the scene, which Jared actually kind of enjoys. It’s a good thing he has the penis sling. But he’s a professional, with a serious girlfriend, and a group of 30 people staring at him, cameras in his face.

But… then there’s Jensen.

Jared grabs on to Emmanuelle, kissing her hard, feeling her startle against his mouth. Pressed chest to chest, Jared thinks of Jensen, watching the two of them and that penis sling gets real uncomfortable, real fast. He squeezes his thigh against it, angles his hips away from her and kisses her harder. 

Jared throws his shirt back on, despite the oily residue, and walks straight to Jensen.

Jensen is frowning, arms crossed, and Jared can’t help but feel a spark of joy at Jensen’s displeasure, although he isn’t so sure why.

“I’m waiting for your feedback,” he croons.

“What are you doing?”

Jared recoils.

This isn’t the memory talking. It was Jensen’s voice, but his own thoughts, accusatory and morose, and reflexively he feels himself flush.

“I don’t know.”

The memory tilts Jensen’s head knowingly, and Jared steps back, the pressure on his chest too much to bear. What was this memory even implying? That.. that Jared… and Jensen…

No.

“I just –“

“You wanted him to say, what?” He recognizes his own voice, disgusted, making him slump his shoulders and step back, horrified. “That he thought your body was good? That he was jealous? That he enjoyed watching you grind against that girl, get hard thinking about him watching you like that?”

Jared stammers, eyes wide, the words failing to come to his mouth. _That can’t be right_ Jared thinks, thoughts racing. _Holy shit – do I have feelings for…_

All the lights are shut off. Jared veers around – but the whole room is black. Blacker than black. Like everything is gone. He doesn’t remember what he was doing, just the feeling of discomfort that settled into his stomach, and he takes a step forward.

A nightmare. This has to be a nightmare.

But the lights go back on.

And he’s on set. _The same set_ his brain offers, although Jared doesn’t remember being on this set, or even filming this particular episode. And the pretty brunette biting her lip and giving him those flirty eyes – whats her deal

Suddenly, there’s a gun in his hand. He’s Sam. The room around him is dead silent. All he has to do is imagine – a needle, holding Sadie in his arms as life drains fro her and the tears start to fall.

He looks at his co-star. At Jensen.

Jensen’s looking at him with such sad eyes.

More than acting. More than a man acting sad about his fake-brother being sad. Doesn’t matter. Jensen’s face, the contortion of his face only helps Jared’s tears flow freely. He lifts the gun and walks forward.

End scene.

Internally – Jared is patting himself on the back. _What a performance!_ He thinks.

Coming back out and wiping his tears, Jared joints the rest of the screw, all enthusiastically crowded around the camera. Jared beams. He _really_ did great – everyone was around the camera watching _his_ performance and…

Jared pauses. The camera rooms in on Jensen, and a single, perfect tear rolls from his left eye.

Jared clenches his fist and looks around – Jensen is not part of the crowd, and Jared huffs off straight to the trailers, knocking insistently on Jensen’s door before storming in, catching the older man taking off his jacket, seemingly having just arrived.

“Jared – hey – “ Jensen starts, but Jared doesn’t let him finish.

“Thanks for stealing my big scene, asshole!”

Jared closes the distance between them in less than a second and puts his hands on Jensen; Jensen simply takes a deep inhale and closes his eyes tight.

A fight.

It had to happen eventually, right?

They were both young men, filled with testosterone and…

Jared reached his hands out, slowly, until his fingers reached Jensen’s cheek. The tear streak was still on his face. Gently, Jared used his thumb to swipe at the trail, leaving grease and dirt in its place. Jensen doesn’t move, keeps looking at him. Those eyes, tearful, emerald green, summertime green, overwhelming and sparkling green, could kill any man. 

Jared can’t help himself – he breaks out in a huge grin and Jensen recoils, shoving him lightly in the shoulder, rubbing the part of his cheek that Jared was so gingerly touching just moments ago.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jensen barks.

Jared’s smile doesn’t fade – he flashed his dimples at Jensen, looking so darn pleased with himself.

“You care about me.”

“I… what?”

“The tear. You care about me.”

“I’m… I’m playing your brother. It was a sad scene. Idiot.”

“Sure.”

Like building blocks, the trailer and the world around them fades away. Jared, smiling at Jensen. Jensen, fingers against his cheek, mouth slightly parted. Their eyes locked.

The way Jensen’s eyes spoke to him – that? That’s the last to go.

* * *

“Why is he like this, eh?”

“Even Jensen’s friends aren’t his friends, compadre. I’ve known the dude for 6 years,” other chimed in ‘four years,’, ‘two’, worked with him on this project, etc, “and we don’t know anything about him. Surprised to hear you’re getting something out of him.”

He can make him laugh.

It was a fucking magical discovery.

Jared’s ranting, making jokes, speaking in a drawl, he loves an audience and Jensen is there – he’s always there – and he laughs. And holy shit.

Jared can’t help but pull these new sounds, words from him. How much is Jensen hiding behind that sweet, professional façade? He saw a glimpse at the fight, sure, but there was the laugh.

Jensen’s on the red carpet, hair unusually tamed and Jared sprints towards him. Everything is too tight against his skin, he’s starting to sweat, the cameras and the shouting voices becoming guttural sounds.

Jared sees Jensen and he’s touching him again, always touching him, since the brawl when Jensen didn’t stop him, when he saved him. Jensen knows the cameras are on him, won’t swat him away, he’s a good businessman, suited up with that skinny black tie –

Jared believes, knows, just for a spare second, when Jensen saw him, he softens. His shoulders loosen. His words flow into the microphone like he’s been doing it his whole life…

Jared, fire in his belly, puts his palms on Jensen’s face and puckers his lips, bringing them close together. His pinky brushes the angle of Jensen’s lips and Jensen’s good, real good, pushes him away with a single hand against his.

He lingers, finger against finger, callouses rough against Jared’s skin, for longer than he should.

Right. Right? Jared runs off, almost skipping, everything in him buzzing.

The next time he puts his hands on Jensen’s face for the camera, Jensen swats him away faster, unsurprised.

Jared’s half-joking, pulling at strings. Jensen’s so silent, so stoic, so rocklike and to get him to say thing, especially about Jared, well –

“He thought I was hot,” eggs Jared. Jensen, without a hitch, responds immediately.

“I said – This guy is smokin’ hot! I can’t play his brother!”

Jared laughs, open and honest but his mouth is dry, mind racing.

What can you play? What can you play. _What will you play._

The last to fade were the butterflies in Jared’s stomach, still so real that he felt their wings, one by one, erased.

* * *

Jared’s on his third beer and his arm is already draped against Jensen’s shoulder, slack and heavy. Jensen’s drinking too – had to be, or he wouldn’t let Jared touch him.

Jensen doesn’t ever let Jared touch him. That’s the thing. He always makes this sour, lemon sucking, annoyed face when Jared comes over, when he nuzzles against Jensen’s shoulder or leans on him and Jared notices it, sure, but he doesn’t care. Actually, it makes him want to do it even more.

This dude – Jensen – is his new co-star. He’s just making friends, playing up the chemistry for the cast and crew and the cameras, right?

So who was he playing it up for tonight?

“Mmm. Man. Why are you always cuddling up to me?” Jensen asks, his eyes closed and voice quiet and wispy, like the man is sleep talking.

“You don’t like me.” Jared pokes Jensen in the ribs and, God forbid, it must be a miracle – the older man giggles, just doubles over and giggles. Jensen’s ticklish. He’ll have to put that in his mental bank and store it away for later.

“That shits impossible. Everybody likes you, Padalecki.”

“Yeah.” Another quick attempt for Jensen’s ribs, but Jensen swats his finger away. The laugh vibrates up Jared’s arm, still draped against the other man’s shoulder. “Everybody does. But you don’t.”

Jensen shrugs his shoulders and he’s trying to shake Jared’s hold but Jared grips tight. Sure, he’s still skinny and younger but his hands are big and strong and there ain’t nobody that Jared can’t win over.

Jared keeps prodding, “You hate when I touch you for the cameras. When I put my hand on your chest,” fingers splay over Jensen’s heart and Jared’s drunk, on fire, but Jensen doesn’t move his hand, lets his fingers linger over the buttons on his shirt, unmoving, unable to explore just how far…

When did Jensen get another beer? When did Jensen hand him another beer?

Well shit - it didn’t matter.

“You’re a little shit.”

“You have to be more specific.”

“Why are you pulling me closer to you?”

“That is one tall story Mr. Ackles.”

“I…? What?”

“Almost like you’re… pulling a fast one on me.”

“Are you? Speaking to me in idioms now?”

“A fast one. Jensen.”

“I’ll show you a fast one.”

And in one true, fluid motion, just as Jensen was making an exaggerated jerking-off motion, his hand hit a bit Canadian dude, making him spill his beer down his Canucs jersey.

Jensen only mouths ‘shit’ as Jared starts laughing uncontrollably.

“What the fuck – do you two faggots think you’re doing?” The man was truly shaped like a barrel, huge handlebar moustache and big, bulging belly. Maybe four or five of his friends turn around, all middle aged and shaped like hairy, heavyset, unfortunately oversized, dwarves.

In Jared’s defense, he’s still pretty sure the other guy threw the punch first. Even re-watching this memory, it wasn’t clear. Three of the guys jumped Jared, and despite his well-placed shoves and punches to the dude’s guts, he was cornered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jensen squirm out of the small dogpile starting on his side of the fight and hightail the fuck out of that bar.

Jared only had a spare second for feeling personally insulted until one of the dudes grabbed him by his long hair and started making coo-ing noises at him. Pretty girl, and the like. It gets blurry here – Jared was starting to see red, the pain blinding him with flashing lights. Skinny 22 year old sissy actor from San Antonio was about to go Hulk.

“God fucking dammnit, Padalecki!” Jensen shouts, grabbing a barstool and bashing the man grabbing at Jared’s hair underneath the jaw. Blood spurts out of his mouth – he must have bit his tongue – and Jensen thrusts out a hand. Jared doesn’t even hesitate, grips Jensen’s bicep as Jensen’s gripping his and Jensen pulls hard.

“If we get out of this alive,” Jensen pants. His lip is split and its bleeding, red marks already forming bruises on his jaw. “You owe me a steak dinner.”

The first guy, the one with the Canuks Jersey, makes a beeline for Jensen but Jared is ready, he’s hulking out, and he dropkicks the guy. It was absolutely definitely like in the \ movies. The guy flies backwards, thuds on the table – Jared imagines that the table breaks, just for his own satisfaction. With a pang, he realizes this memory will be gone. Any second. The crazy dude that Jared just dropkicked is disappearing already, fingers and toes dissolving into the void of Jared’s subconscious.

Jared pulls Jensen outside and they stand there, huddled over, bruised, Jared’s shirt ribbed across his chest, and these two idiots can’t stop laughing.

Jensen gasps for air and stretches his back, bones cracking with the motion. He shuts his eyes tight and groans, but Jared keeps laughing. Old man. But that’s a jab for later. There was always later.

“I remember there was mention of a steak dinner. Morton’s?”

“You wanna go home and change first?

“Nah, man. Lets do this. We look hardcore.”

“They won’t let us in.”

Jensen is leaning on Jared again and Jared’s hand is around his shoulder. In support, he realizes now. Back then, he thought he was helping Jensen with his injuries. In reality, Jared knows that his ankle was badly sprained or bruised by that dropkick and all this time he thought he was supporting Jensen… well. Jensen was supporting him.

Ain’t that a kick in the nuts.

“That’s what you get!” Jared teases. The bar is disappearing behind them. They had been running, he didn’t know for how long, and the streets were normal streets, city meshed with restaurants and highways and he should probably call a cab, shouldn’t he?

But the streetlights are disappearing and Jared grips on to Jensen tighter.

“I’m not ready.”

“Not ready? For what?”

“For you to go.”

Memory Jensen’s eyes shone with recognition. Jared bites his lip and adjusts his grip. This is all in your mind. This isn’t Jensen. This is a memory.

“I have to, you know. But do the last bit.”

“The last bit?”

Memory Jensen smiles, straining his bruised lip. Even then, Jared wanted to tend it, run his fingers over it. It was his fault Jensen was being so stupid, after all. Him that Jensen came back to rescue. “I always liked the last bit.” Screw knowing that this is a memory.

“Okay.” Jared clears his throat and knits his eyebrows together in concern.

“That’s what I get for spending any time outside of work with you, Padalecki. One night. Just one. And people are already beating the shit out of me.”

“Jared.”

“What?”

“Call me Jared.”

“I…”

“Better yet, call me Jay.”

“Pada…”

“Better yet – Big Jay. What the ladies call me.” Jared is winking and Jensen is punching him in the shoulder.

“I’m not fucking calling you that. You idiot.”

Jared’s smirk died. He tried to recollect if Jensen ever did call him Big Jay. But he couldn’t remember.

The lights from the sidewalk disappeared slowly, illuminating the two of them like they were in a one-man play. Then they disappeared, too.

* * *

The first thought that hits Jared is the smell. Age-old paper sitting on wooden shelves. Light streams through the windows. The computer he’s sitting beside has a full keyboard, and a long screen like a classic television.

And then… the scent of leather. Well-worn leather and underneath that, cologne. The kind of cologne young guys who don’t know how to pick out their cologne wear. Jared bets he applied just a little bit, right behind the ears.

Jensen’s looking at him, bobbing his head as if he made the funniest joke in the world and is waiting for a response. Jared is looking at him and he transforms and suddenly they’re on the bridge.

“What…?” It would have made sense for him to stay in the library scene. Their first scene together. Young Jensen, almost eyeline, spiky hair and eyelashes for miles, that long leather jacket three sizes too big, his lips pouting. That boyish beauty. That devil-may-care charm. The fact that this shy, beautiful kid from Texas can, without a hitch, step into the skin of this terrifying, powerful, loyal, passionate, damaged playboy…. But the memory jumped. They’re on the bridge. Bout to get chased by the possessed Impala.

As if reading his mind, Memory Jensen glances up, just a tiny bit.

“You remember your lines this time, asshole?” No. This wasn’t a memory. This was his subconscious talking to him. He knew it.

“I’d look at you and my mind would go completely blank sometimes.” Jared scoffs at himself and brushes his boy-band length hair out of his eyes.

“You were all slack mouthed and in love during the ‘driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole’ scene.” Jensen raises and lowers his eyebrows a few times, his forehead wrinkling. Jared just laughs.

“What about the café scene? You were nudging me with your knee!”

“And you were blushing. Like a girl.”

“And that scene where we were supposed to fight? And you landed on top of me? And you had that ridiculous smirk on your face?”

“Ah man. That was gold. That whole episode. Filming the pilot. Getting the show. That’s all gold.”

“Hey.”

“How come I’m not seeing one of those moments? Why this one?”

Memory Jensen smirks again, like his face is stuck in a glitch. Jared considers that it might very well be.

“Just play this one out. You’ll remember.”

They’re standing on the bridge and the warm air embraces Jared like a blanket. He’s sweating through all the layers they have him in. Jensen’s getting all the best one liners, despite Jared getting the role he auditioned for.

No hard feelings but that’s some bullshit.

“Silence on the set!”

The Impala’s headlights flash on and the engine revs and Jared just abound jumps out of his skin. He almost doesn’t notice it himself, but he’s grabbing on to Jensen’s sleeve – to Dean’s sleeve – hands clammy.

“Who is driving your car?” Jared says, in a shaky voice.

Jensen, Dean, dangles his car keys. Split second.

And the two take off running down the bridge. Jared grabs at Jensen, its not in the script, but Jensen is too fast and too strong and he can’t leave him behind. They have to do all this right.

Jensen grabs back at him, grabs the sleeve of his coat and they’re running. He brushes against Jensen’s hand and Jensen smacks it away, softly, but he’s grinning, tongue sticking between his teeth and crossing his eyes, their backs to the cameras. A laugh almost bubbles out of Jared’s mouth but it doesn’t. He doesn’t let go and never wants to let go.

* * *

Jared is sitting in a waiting room, looking like an office made in the ‘80s. He leans back on one of the gray cushioned chairs and rests his head against the wall. He moves his head to watch the man sitting two chairs over – Jensen. It’s Jensen.

“So this is it,” Jared says. Exhaustion laces his voice but his heart is racing.

“How we met.” Jensen nods, glancing over at Jared. Jared suppresses a gasp.

Jensen looks so young right now.

His hair spiky and messy, like he belonged in a world with frosted tips and boy bands. Full lips, and a large, angular jaw. Eyes too big and eyelashes too long, freckles sprinkling his nose like angels had kissed his eyelids, his nose, him mouth… always Jensen, innocent and dangerous all the same. This is before they kept putting on makeup to cover those beautiful kisses. If Jared remembered anything at all, he’d remember that he loved those freckles.

He’s here too, and he feels himself withdraw a little bit. He’s in an oversized hoodie, old jeans, and a beanie, looking more like he’s going to a tailgate than to an audition.

Jared looks over to Jensen again, who is looking back at him. Jared knows that he’s fabricating all of this, that this Jensen is just a figment of his imagination, but this Jensen seems to look sad. Almost like he doesn’t want to forget Jared, either.

“What did you even like about me?” Jared asks, half-sincerely but in a whisper.

Jensen smiles, reaching out a hand to Jared. Jared instinctively pulls forward. He shouldn’t remember how this feels, right? This is past the part where he touched the tough and callused skin of Jensen’s hand for the first time. Before he found out that he played the guitar and worked his fingers to the bone, often lost in the music for hours. Before Jensen adjusted his grip on a golf club, which left Jared’s own hands bruised and battered but Jensen, Jensen’s been a natural since the beginning.

But it was his hand. Large, calloused, warm. His arm was covered with bracelets, ones that Jared didn’t recognize. Jared’s own arm had two black jelly bracelets on it. Which had significance, he was sure. If he could just remember.

“How humble you are,” Jensen finally answered, voice low and secretive, intimate.

“I’ve auditioned tons of times with lots of people. People who knew people, people who fucked people, people who were good actors and knew it, people who were bad actors and lied about it. And here I sat. This little shit kid,” and Jensen laughs, and Jared knows – knows – he’s heard this somewhere before. This was a memory. “Who got the role I auditioned for and he’s here smiling like a cheese head, in a damn hoodie and beanie like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It was already too late for me. From the very beginning.”

“Jensen, Jared. Come in please.” The secretary calls them into the room and they separate at once, eyes focused as if the conversation hadn’t happened. Well. It hadn’t, really. Jared glances behind him one last time to see the chairs, the waiting room, all fading into a glaring white.

The room was dark, with a spotlight on the two boys. A row of WB executives sat in front, Erik Kripke on the very end, bouncing slightly in his seat. Jared and Jensen are both holding scripts – copies of each of the scripts in front of them.

They run through the scene – the way Jared remembers. He’s Sam, angry and hurt and confused, and Jared raises his voice, sneaks glances towards his partner and Jensen is Dean, damaged but powerful, sarcastic, funny. They reside their lines, naturally, words flowing back and forth between them like a well-rehearsed dance. 

They get applause. They don’t look at each other.

“Even if this doesn’t work out, lets grab a beer sometime. I’m 22 now, I can drink!” Jared felt the nervous words pour from his mouth and he flashes a sheepish smile to Jensen, who turned from charismatic and terrifying Dean Winchester into a shy quiet dude.

He smiles at Jared, only slightly but sincerely, and there was something in his eyes.

“Sounds good, man.”

Only seconds later, Eric comes running out of the room, basically touching his heels in a jump.

“Boys…” he starts.

“We have a show!”

Jared and Jensen both bolt up from their chairs, and time stops. Jared looks at Jensen and Jensen looks back at him. Both of them are in the middle of a hoot or a holler, eyes bright, surprised.

“I knew that this was going to change my life.” Jared lowers his head and shakes it, feels the tears form and does nothing to stop them. Is it even possible, to cry in a dream?

“I can’t believe I did this, Jen. I can’t believe I fucking forgot you. All of this. All… these three years. Everything we’ve been through. Even if you had to… had to forget me. I should have made a different choice. I’m so sorry.”

Jensen’s eyes were sad and Jared noticed that Jensen was starting to fade, his hands now becoming somewhat transparent. Eric and the room were gone and it was just the two of them in empty white space.

“Make the right choice now,” Jensen pauses, almost like he’s watching his torso disappear, slowly.

“Jay, remember. Austin was always the plan.”


	6. Chapter 6

Everything is rocking, bright and blurry, like he’s riding the waves of an ocean on the goddamn sun.

Jared groans and slowly props his body up. His head is pounding and ears are ringing. He feels like he can hear the WHOOSH of blood every time his heart beats. He looks around. The place looks like a disaster. Red cups liter the floor, shot glasses scattered haphazardly along the counters, and a few empty bottles of liquor are piled unceremoniously in the corner. Jared can feel the tequila on his tongue and gags, suppressing his urge to vomit. ,

He glances around to find Chad, laying on the floor. The man’s shirt is ridden up and there’s a trail of drool pooling under his mouth. Despite the pounding in Jared’s head, the sight of his friend brings a smile to his face.

Well – that explains it. Chad is here. So things got fucked up.

Jared stumbles into the bathroom, takes a piss, and takes a hard look at himself in the mirror. Dark circles under his eyes, chapped lips, hair stuck to his forehead – he looks like shit. He notices two sticky notes taped to his chest and pulls them off, examining them passively. One has four numbers on it, the other just saying ‘Austin, Texas.’

“Murray – “Jared yells from the bathroom, taking the sticky notes from his chest and transferring them to the bathroom mirror. Sure looks like his handwriting.

“What the fuck happened last –“ Chad stumbles in before Jared can finish, rubbing a hand over a sunken, pale face. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.  
  
“Last night? You mean the whole weekend, bro. Your going away party – are you fucking kidding me, Padalecki? You don’t remember anything?”

Jared starts running his hands through his hair, feeling unnaturally short under his fingers. The unsettling feeling seeps in and Jared stares at the mirror, leaning in. His stubble is coming in more evenly, his cheeks look hollowed and the haircut almost looks comical on his large body. He grimaces.

“I look like shit,” Jared states, mussing his hair before shrugging. Chad raises his eyebrows and nods thoughtfully, earning a punch in the arm from the taller man.

Even so, his head is pounding. Jared makes his way back to his kitchen and opens the cupboard, his hand reaching for a glass – his his fingers touch nothing. Jared steps back – and opens each one of the cupboards, the drawers, the refrigerator. But everything is empty.

“Did people steal my shit?” Jared yells back into the bathroom, where he can hear his friend urinating. With the door open. Shameless.

“You packed your shit and sent it to your folk’s house last week – shit, how drunk did you get? Did you try Kevin’s acid? I keep telling Kevin, you know, man, stop making people take your acid, we know you made it in your bathtub.” Chad flushes the toilet and walks outside, leaning against the wall, watching Jared stick his head under the faucet and drink tepid water from his sink.

Jared doesn’t see Chad’s face, pensive, eyes burrowing into Jared from across the room.

“All my clothes?”

“Yup.”  
“And the kids?”

“Harley and Sadie are at my place. They’re ready for you whenever you decide to drive down.”

“Down to where?”

“San Antonio,” Chad places a palm on his forehead and forcibly closes his eyes. He shakes his head in annoyance.

“Back to your parents. Dude, you and Sandy broke up. You’re finished shooting your movie. You wanted to move back with your parents.”

Jared considers Chad’s matter-of-fact words as he rinses off his hands, inexplicably sticky for some reason. Everything Chad was saying sounded wrong, absolutely insane . Why would he break up with Sandy? Why the hell would he move back in with his parents?

But his house that he’s been renting is empty, and Chad’s standing next to him. With his pounding headache and aching pit in the bottom of his stomach, he decides that Chad’s always been on his side. He wouldn’t lie to him.

Its not like he had a better explanation.

Jared sighs.

“Wow, man. Maybe I’ve been fucked up for a while.”

“I’ll say.” Chad digs into his pockets before taking out the two sticky notes he took off from Jared’s bathroom mirror.“

You’ll want to keep these, man.”

Jared scrunches his nose.

“Why?”

“Just fucking keep them, Rain Man. Maybe they mean something. You made sure I kept them safe, so I kept them safe, dumbass.”

Jared reached out tentatively and took the sticky notes, examining them briefly before shoving them back into his pocket. He searches Chad’s face – he waits for a break in the stoic lines of his friend’s face, for Chad to start laughing his ass off, saying that he’s just fucking with him – but Chad remains silent and serious.

“Wait – you said Harley and Sadie are at your place?”

“Yeah.”

“In… L.A.?”

“Did I stutter?”

“You want me to drive down to L.A.? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I want you to drive both of us down to L.A., cause I sure as hell ain’t buying another plane ticket after you had me buy all that booze.”

“…fair enough.”

With just the clothes on his back and his car keys, Jared looks back at the empty home before he shuts the door. Empty walls, scattered furniture. A hollow feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. He expects to feel something – anything. There was a part of him, when he first started renting this place, that was convinced he’d buy it if he got a steady acting gig in Vancouver – a place for him and Sandy to settle down, make their own. He could almost hear the patter of Harley and Sadie against the wooden floors. But the place in front of him now – echoing in its emptiness, devoid of warmth. The home of a stranger.

There’s nothing at all here. Nothing at all left for him.

Jared shrugs, pats Chad on the back, and the two leave the home and clamber into Jared’s car.

“Tim Horton’s, first stop!” Chad demands, and Jared is more than happy to comply.

* * *

Chad’s holding a small safe in his hands, standing in the living room, as if he’s waiting for something.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing here?” Jared repeats. All he does is call Chad to inform him that Jensen was going to propose to Danni, and that she’s in L.A., and has he seen her recently? He knows they run in the same circles and maybe she’s partying and cheating on Jensen? Next thing he knows, Chad shows up on his doorstep, carrying a safe, a small backpack, and a wild look in his eyes.

“You have those sticky notes?” Chad sounds rushed and Jared darts to his junk drawer, spending a few minutes digging the colorful paper out among the assortment of old batteries, paperclips and bills. 

“Austin and four numbers - 0301? These?”

“Yes, asshole, these. Put the fucking code into the safe.”

“First of all, why are you here, man? Second of all, why do you have a safe? Is this some kind of Punk’d thing? You’re acting weird Chad – hanging out with Kevin again?” Jared teases, remembering their wild morning a few months back, a weekend blurred with tequila and two little white pills.

_Cold windshield. The window is breaking. Someone is carrying him. Wait. The white pills._

Little white pills? Jared shakes his head, trying to remember where the fleeting thought came from, but there was no trail to follow, and he focuses back on Chad and on the safe he’s still holding.

“That must be heavy,” Jared comments.

“It sure as shit is. Open it, dumbass.”

“With,” Jared holds up the sticky note with the big 0301 written on it, “This?”

Chad looks like he’s about to throw hands so Jared stops teasing and approaches him, squatting to get to face-level with the automatic safe Chad still hasn’t released.

The lock opens after the “1” and Jared looks up at Chad, thrilled, to only be met with hard eyes. Inside the safe lays a solitary CD in a case. Jared takes it out, examining it. White tape labels the cover with his name written in a handwriting he doesn’t recognize. ‘Jared Padalecki.’

Chad is already moving, practically throwing the empty safe onto Jared’s futon and grabbing Jared’s computer from the coffee table, thrusting it towards him.

“I don’t understand…” Jared starts, but Chad is starting to get shaky and squinting his eyes, red in the face. “Look, I’m not… Jensen sure as hell ain’t marrying Danni. He never even fucking told me that… No. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“He never…? You guys know each other?” Jared asks, but Chad ignores him, forcefully shoving the CD into Jared’s computer.

Jared glares at the computer and back at Chad, more convinced than ever that this CD would be some jumpscare video. But if that’s the case, then why are Chad’s hands fidgeting impatiently?

Before the audio starts, Chad jumps in, “Don’t hate me for this, Jared. I just thought you’d like to know.”

The audio starts to play, and its Jared’s voice. Time stands still.

Strands re-ignite all around him, pulling at his fingers. _Remember._

* * *

Jared pushes past Jensen into his home as soon as Jensen opens the door, breathing heavy and sweating. Jared is wild-eyed, hair untamed, and Jensen directs him to his couch, motioning for him to sit down. Jared does not.

“Don’t marry her.”

“What?”

“Don’t marry her.” Jared repeats, eyes determined. For the first time, Jensen notices the CD case held firmly in Jared’s palms. He’s practically waving it around now, shoving it into Jensen’s hands. Jensen takes the disk.

“Where’s your computer?”

Jensen just does what Jared tells him, unable to react or formulate a response. The anxiety and panic emanating form his friend is palpable; unlike he’s ever seen before, and just that jolts him awake and convinces him to run upstairs, bringing his laptop to Jared obediently.

Jared gingerly removes the disk from the case, loading it. iTunes pops up. Jared waits expectantly, staring at the screen.

Only audio. The voice, screeching through his speakers, is emotional, cracking. He’s never heard it like that. What it was saying almost makes his knees give out.

“.... My name is… Jared Padalecki. And the person I’m erasing is…. Jensen Ackles.”

Jared pauses the audio and stares up at Jensen accusingly. Jensen’s eyes widen but he says nothing.

“What… what was that?”

“I knew there was a reason Danneel hated me the second she saw me. Jesus, Jensen. She knows me. You know me. We’ve been here. Before. Not here here, but. Fuck. Just.”

“If this is some practical joke…?” Jensen starts, but Jared springs up and grabs Jensen by the shoulders. Jared’s standing straight, his chest puffed out, makes the most of the inches between them. He’s staring straight into Jensen’s eyes, kaleidoscope of emotion. Jensen bites his tongue and lets the younger man speak.

“Listen to the rest of it.“ Jared chews at his bottom lip for a second before letting go of Jensen’s shoulders and sitting back down, playing the clip. Jared’s voice, crackling but clear, poured from the speakers.

“I. I liked him right away. Three years ago – casting call for a pilot of a TV show. About brothers, road tripping across the states, fighting monsters. Star Wars meets Route 66 – or something. You seen it?” The Jared in the audio clears his throat. “No surprise, had shit ratings and we got canned anyway. But.”

“There’s no fucking way,” Jensen protests, talking over the recording. “What TV show are you talking about? This…”

“Shut up.” Jared hushes him, and Jensen grits his teeth. 

“They gave us the show. He was. I don’t know. Different, I guess. Is that the right way to say it? Different. Genuine but… I don’t know. Shy. Damn talented, cool as hell. Too cool. Damn front he put up that whole time. Too cool, that’s Ackles for you. Too cool for– that. Urgh. Fuck. You’re recording this, right?”

The pause gave ample time for Jensen to turn his head towards Jared, but Jared didn’t look to him. The younger man sits wide eyed, knees bouncing up and down, fingers tapping, shaking his head, as if he doesn’t want to believe what he’s hearing.

Only in that second does it dawn on Jensen that maybe, maybe this isn’t a joke.

Jensen can almost feel his heart catch in his throat. He forces himself to take a deep breath as the man in the audio, some version of Jared, starts to speak again.

“The show was over. Three years of in each others pockets, every day and every night – I wanted to be together after it was over. Public. Rainbow flags on our windows, holidays with the parents, that sort of thing. He… he didn’t share that dream. He went and forgot I ever… He forgot I ever fucking existed.”

The recording goes blank and Jared glares up at Jensen, tears in his eyes.

“Three years. Three fucking years. And I can’t remember a single. Solitary. Fucking. Thing.” Jared throws up three fingers. “Three years, Jensen.”

Jensen shakes his head again and steps back. There was no way this was real. Nothing like this was even possible. How could… how could he forget three years of his life? . But Jared was now hyperventilating, big, heaving sobs almost escaping his body. Jensen reaches out but Jared recoils, as if Jensen’s touch with disintegrate him. 

“Three years. I thought. I thought I couldn’t get work. I thought Sandy hated me. I thought…” Jared takes a big, heaving breath and steadies himself. “And I did this… for you? Because of you? I don’t even… I don’t even know your fucking last name, Jensen!!!”

“Jared… I. I’m sorry. I. I have no idea what…”

“This explains so much. Explains why I… why Harley and Sadie... why you…” Jared presses against his forehead with his fingertips, practically digging into his temples, as if trying to bring thoughts forward.

Jensen breathes evenly, staring ahead, squinting at the blank wall in front of him. He remembers Danneel, the second she saw Jared standing in their living room. Her steely face. The fact that after she met Jared, she didn’t treat him the same. She didn’t kiss him anymore. She spent more time traveling. Even the way she laughed was suddenly different, more forced.

Jensen pauses.

From the minute he saw Jared in his lake, floating in the water, he was… inexplicably drawn to him.

Wanted to speak to him.

Wanted to know him.

Kept finding himself at Jared’s doorstep.

Harley and Sadie were never wary of him. Not a single time since meeting him. They placed their muzzles on his thigh and waited for him to scratch their ears, and he always knew exactly where they liked it.

Jared’s legs are bouncing and he’s staring at Jensen, but Jensen can’t offer him anything. The bewildered look on Jensen’s face, his agape mouth – Jared pauses. His anger dissipates almost immediately.

“You… didn’t know?” Jared implores. Half hoping Jensen says yes. Half hoping that he could run straight back into his house and destroy that stupid coffee table…

Jensen gawks at the younger man, mouth dry, barely able to shake his head ‘No.’

Jared’s shoulders droop, whether in defeat or relief Jensen can’t be sure. But his heart slows down when he sees Jared disarm.

Among the turmoil in Jensen’s head, the words spring to the front of his brain ‘together.’

His heart starts to race and he looks to Jared.

“We were together.” Jensen states, the words feeling heavy in the room. Jared flinches.

“Probably why your girlfriend hated me the second she saw me.”

Jensen causes, furrowing his brows.

“That doesn’t make sense. I’ve been with Danni for years. We… we live together. Did I… did I cheat on her?”

Jared huffs.

“Really? That’s what you’re gonna focus on? Not the fact that me and you were in a TV show for three years, and oh, also in a relationship?”

Jensen remains quiet.

“None of this makes sense. Danni wouldn’t lie to me. Our family – our friends. Why would they lie to us about this?”

Jared pauses.

“I – I gotta go talk to a few people. I – I gotta get this situated in my head. This. I…” Jared looks into Jensen’s eyes, searches them. There’s so much he wants to say, so much that his heart aches with. So much that makes _sense_ now.

But how can the fact that they were in, what, love? matter when neither one of them can remember?

“I – I need to figure things out. I. I don’t – I don’t want to see you for a while. I’m sorry.”

Jared bites the inside of his mouth, lifts his hand and levitates it over Jensen’s stunned shoulder, but momentarily decides against it. He waits, just a beat too long, just long enough to let Jensen say something, anything, to stop him, but – Jensen doesn’t say a single damn thing. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a sound.

Resolutely, Jared stands up. He gingerly places the disk back in its case, and makes his way out the door.

* * *

The phone rings a few times before Danni finally picks up.

Jensen sits in his office, in front of his computer, where he’s hardly moved a muscle. He hasn’t been able to move, not really, not since Jared left a few hours before. His body suddenly felt like it was weighed down with lead.

The whiskey he poured, at least, keeps him from drowning in his own thoughts. He watches the drink dilute, condensation forming on the outside of the glass.

“Hey, Jensen!” Danni yells. There’s a cacophony of voices all around her, muddling up the phone line. Jensen heard laughter and ‘woo-ing’ in the background.

“Can you talk? For a minute?”

The noise becomes muffled almost immediately. Danneel’s voice now comes clear over the receiver. Her tone, previously so playful, is not sharp and serious.

“Is everything okay?”

Jensen gulps, hopes his voice doesn’t betray him.

“Not really,” he starts. “Its about Jared.”

Silence.

“Oh?”

“Do you know him? I mean. From before. Do I know him?”

“…What makes you ask that?” Hesitation. Jensen takes a large gulp of whiskey, a little taste of that liquid courage.

“He showed up panicked today. And he showed me this recording. On a CD with his name on it. I thought it might have been a joke at first. But the person talking, “Jensen takes another large gulp of whiskey, emptying his glass, “He was talking about us. About us knowing each other. For three years."

Danni groans loudly over the phone, voice becoming more tense.

“When you came to, I almost kicked Barish’s ass,” she grit out, “You’ll just forget your relationship, blah blah blah. We did it differently for you than for Jared, blah blah blah. But you couldn’t remember the last three years of your life either. I’d sue the asshole if what he was doing was legal…”

Jensen pops an ice-cube into his mouth and lets it numb his cheek as he listens to Danneel rant. 

“Just so you know, I was always against you doing it. Always. Who does that? Who erases a person like that? Jared I get, but you? I thought you were stronger than that, Jensen.” Danni sighs again and Jensen hears the distinct beeping of something on her cell phone. “I told Barish, I told him. That you spent every second together. For the past three years. And he just waves me off – he waves me off and what the fuck do you do? You bring that shaggy-haired twink right back to me. After what – three months!? How was I supposed to unravel that tapestry of shit, huh?”

“I was going to ask you to marry me.” Jensen half-whispers over the phone.

“I know.” Danneel answers. An unusual silence draws on between them.

“How?” Jensen finally asks. 

“You were going to ask me last time too.”

Danneel laughs abruptly and responds to someone outside whichever room she holed herself in, and returns promptly to the phone.

“If it makes you feel any better… I never wanted to marry you either. But. I would have said yes. You were… are. One of my best friends, Jensen. It was fun to play house for a while. But now its time to face reality. I need to come back to LA. And you… and him, you two need to face reality.”

“Also,” she adds, “The safe in under your bed. The combo is 0719. Good luck.”

* * *

“Start with your name, and the name of the person you want to erase. Then tell us about the person you want to erase – how you met, why it ended, why you want to erase them. Give us a basic overview of your relationship.”

The same voice from Jared’s recording, gravely, serious, older. Must be Barish.

“Uh…” the voice starts, unsure, but its him, its Jensen, and Jensen’s entire body wants to disintegrate, “My name is Jensen Ackles. I’m erasing…” the voice sighs and Jensen closes his eyes, like he’s feeling this alternate Jensen’s emotions, like he’s preparing himself for the next words, “I’m erasing Jared Padalecki.”

Silence. And then his voice starts again, still unsure, still wrought with pain.

“Jared and I… had been. I don’t know. Together. For about a year now. We met three years ago. He was a shitty kid who got a part I wanted. I wasn’t nice to him. He was… like sunshine took physical form, you know those people? He never stopped talking or laughing or smiling. Everyone who had ever met him loved him…”

His voice quivers, barely audibly, and Jensen’s heart aches for the man in the recording.

“I did too. Fall in love with him, I mean. Like an idiot. It wasn’t just his laughter, his positivity, his devil-can-do attitude… But how scary-smart he was. He knew everything.” Jensen laughs on the tape, eliciting a small chuckle from Jensen listening. _Yeah,_ he thinks, _Jared really does know everything._ “I respected that immensely about him. He didn’t even go to college but he’s so well read, and intuitive, and… well. There was this part of him. This dark part. The part that was silent. He felt… he feels everything strongly. He never knew how to… control his emotions, deal with them. He’s impulsive and unbalanced and…. He’s never fucking… damn. Sorry. Give me a minute.”

The recording goes silent again, only the breathing of the recorded Jensen coming through. It synced up almost harmoniously with the deep breathing that Jensen was doing now, eyes glazed and far away.

“You know fucking why, Barish. He’s getting better. He’s getting better, and he never could when I was around. I don’t fucking trust myself. I almost slipped up once. I showed up at his mother’s house. She nearly killed me. How could I, she said.” Jensen pauses on the recording, steadying his voice. “After putting Jared through this. After making him… I love him. I want that to be clear. I was willing to sacrifice everything for him – and did. Because he was my life, you know? And now – now. I know – I know how pathetic it sounds, but – I just can’t let it go. I can’t let the way I felt go. I can’t let _him_ go. Even though I know that… this is better for him. ”

Pause.

“He got a second chance, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful. To you. To Mary. And I was ready to live with the consequences. I was. So at least one of us could keep the memory alive. And…” Jensen’s voice breaks in the recording. Jensen listening almost doesn’t feel the tear sliding down his cheek and into his lips, the salt burning against his skin.

“I’m too weak. I don’t know where to put this love, and its eating me from the inside out. I want a second chance too. And I know its selfish. I know its reckless. But this is something I have to do.” The voice sounds more resolute.

Barish starts to speak, the background static making it hard to decipher, but Jensen remembers the words, almost like he’d never forgotten them in the first place.

“There’s no going back after we start. Your life is going to be different. You’re not just giving up your memory of him – you’re giving up your career, your home, your friends.” 

Jensen recognizes Danneel’s voice over the recording.

“Don’t worry. We’ve thought of that already. As long as Jensen feels… ready. As long as,” she presses, “he really wants this.”

“I’m ready.”

* * *

“LACUNA, Vancouver branch. How may I help you?”

“I…” Jensen clears his throat, fingers tracing the white tape plastered over his own CD. _Jensen Ackles._

“I’m a former patient. I’d like to talk to Dr…. Barish? I suppose?”

The woman’s voice makes an exasperated noise over the phone.

“You know, it really is against our company policy for people to show you their notes, I think it would just be better not to tell people, honestly – Yeah yeah. I’ll transfer you. Hold, please.”

Jensen picks at his fingernails, breaking off pieces of skin. He tries not to bite the skin, a dirty habit he dropped when he started acting.

The voice, a supersonic boom, echoes in Jensen’s ears. Its rings, echoing in the chambers of his mind, and the words come to his mind, almost intrusively, attached to human-like shadows in his peripheral vision.

_“And I’ll forget this too?”_

_“You’re forgetting already. See?” Dr. Barish’s face is blank. Smudged by the tip of a pencil eraser. He waves one hand and it evaporates before Jensen’s eyes. Jensen is in the chair in blindingly sterile clinic but the clinic is gone. Jensen is sitting in a chair but the chair is gone. Jensen is walking into his home, their home. He’s packing a suitcase. The photos are blurred. He’s looking in the mirror, but his eyes are on the wrong side of his head, his ears are on his hands. He grips the key to the house, tight, tight until he feels that his hand might bleed, and it drops to the table through his transparent fingers._

“Hello?” Dr. Barish repeats, tapping the phone line. The hard taps help Jensen snap out of his spell, blink a few times, gather his thoughts.

“Yeah. Hi. Sorry. I’m a former patient of yours. Jensen Ackles.”

“Mmmhhm. I remember you.”

If Jared was here, he’d make a quip about the good doctor’s choice of words. But Jensen doesn’t have that in him, and Jared sure as hell isn’t here.

“So, what’s the problem? Clem said that you knew my name? Someone tell you about the erasure, or you remembering on your own?”

“Me – uh. No. Yes. I’m remembering some things. I wasn’t,” Jensen chuckles, “Actually, you guys did a great job.” He wants to kick himself at the compliment, but realizes that he’s sincere, and continues. “It was the person I forgot, that remembered. And in turn – listened to the disk.”

Barish clicks his tongue over the receiver.

“He found you? That’s. That seems – improbable. Is Jared okay?”

Jensen pauses. Barish’s tone switched from annoyance to concern in seconds flat at the mention of Jared.

“What do you mean?” Jensen asks slowly. The line falls quiet.

“I realize how hard it was for you to do what you did – but this doesn’t work if the trigger is still around. That was the agreement.”

“I don’t understand.”

The gruff voice sounds resigned over the phone.

“I know you don’t. Which is another reason it was such a bad idea to erase yourself after Jared’s treatment. If you still remembered, this wouldn’t be such a pointless conversation. What can I say that you would even understand? Simply enough, its this – we saved his life. But the mind, the neurons, the connections, memories; they’re complex. If you trigger something in him, if you pull just on the right string – the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. And all of this was for nothing.”

“Wait – saved his life? I don’t understand. What – what happened to Jared?” 

“Good day, Mr. Ackles.” The line goes dead.

* * *

_It comes to Jensen in a dream. So clear he could reach out and touch it._

_Someone large, hair everywhere, is on a hospital bed. He’s too tall and his ankles are propped haphazardly over the edge. He’s wearing a hospital gown, over which is a white mesh vest. The vest is tied to the bed. The man, Jared, doesn’t move. His eyes are open but his face is hidden in the blankets of the bed._

_“Has anything like this ever happened before?”_

_“No,” Jensen felt himself whisper._

_“Does he have access to firearms in the home?”_

_“No… no. We don’t own guns.”_

_“Sharp objects?”_

_“… I guess. Kitchen knives.”_

_“I’d like you to put those in a safe place before he returns home…”_

_“I don’t understand. I… “_

_“Sir, does Mr. Padalecki have any other medical conditions?”_

_“No... no…”_

_“Is he on any medications?”_

_“He’s… he’s been on a few antidepressants recently… There’s so many, I.. I don’t remember their names. Nothing was helping. Nothing was…”_

_Jensen is hyperventilating, fingers clawing at his own face._

_Jared’s car. Jensen knocks on the window, frantic. Its been snowing, and at 5 am, the crisp air, the light reflecting off the fresh white powder, its beautiful. Jensen is pounding on the window._

_Jared’s eyes are closed. The bottle of vodka lay empty on the passenger seat._

_The ambulance._

_The silence._

_The endless fucking silence._

* * *

Jensen hesitates in front of Jared’s door. He breathes out, steady. He’s had a couple of drinks, and feels the sourness of the alcohol in the back of his throat.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel. Anger? Confusion? Should he be doing everything he can to figure out what Barish meant? What is all of this was about saving Jared’s life?

Should he even… be here? Everyone keeps telling him to stay away from Jared – maybe he’s making the wrong choice, showing up at his house again, like this. He can’t seem to stop himself. His feet always take him there. Its like the man has a gravitational pull, and Jensen is helpless within it.

Jensen flashes back to Jared, looking young and devastated, eyes red, lips trembling.

He couldn’t just…

He couldn’t let Jared do this alone.

So he knocks anyway.

The lights are off in the house, but Jensen can hear faint voices in the background, distant, like they were coming from a television.

“Doors open.” Jensen hears Jared’s voice state, no emotion behind the words.

Jensen sighs, wills the aching in his chest to stop, and opens the door.

Jared’s silhouette is clear on his futon, a beer on the coffee table in front of him, only source of light the television in front of the man.

“It’s weird…” Jared starts, not even looking at Jensen. “I’ve tried a couple of times, but this is the only movie with you in it that I can watch. I’ve tried the others but – have you heard of that disease, where you think everyone you know is an imposter, and not really who they are? I watch them and I see you – and it feels like both a stranger and someone I should know. Its very… unsettling. Same thing with the voice. I had to change the setting of the TV. Chad thinks its because you look different enough that I’m able to make the connection between you now and you as that actor.”

Jensen looks to the screen to be met with himself, but with a dyed Mohawk, fake piercings, and black eyeliner. Ten Inch Hero. Huh.

Jensen quietly sits down next to Jared and the two of them wordlessly stare at the screen. Danneel appears on screen, young, spunky. The love interest. Jensen stomach rolls uncomfortably.

“People are hiding something from me. I can’t shake the feeling that… there’s more to this. Than… a break up.” Jared’s voice is barely a whisper. Jensen glances at him, something stirring in the back of his head.

Jensen clears his throat.

“Are you… are you still angry at me?” he asks, avoiding Jared’s face.

Jared peals his face away from the movie and gives Jensen a sad smile.

“How can I be angry about something that I can’t even remember?”

Jared breathes in deeply, his shoulders slumped.

“Besides, none of that feels real. I don’t know what kind of circumstances brought that Jared and that Jensen into… a relationship, but… that’s not us.”

Jensen nods slowly, keeping his eyes tight, keeping the burning inside.

“I just… I don’t want to lose you.” Jensen says decisively. _Again._ The word is clear, but he doesn’t say it. Doesn’t know where it comes from. Doesn’t recognize the words as his own.

The scene flashes again, in front of his eyes, too fast. But he knows it real.

_The hospital bed, Jared hooked up to monitors. The car window. The ice._

_Jared inside, unconscious._

“Don’t be such a girl, man!” Jared ribs, playful tone in his voice. Jensen returns a sad smile.

_Can’t lose him. Not again._

* * *

“How much does he remember?” Mrs. Padalecki practically yells at Jensen, slamming open the front door.

“Ma’am, I don’t…”

“I told ya last time you were here, forgetting you was the best thing he ever did and I’ll be damn sure you don’t ruin that for him!”

“Ma’am… I just met your son a few months ago.”

Mrs. Padalecki’s eyes widen. Her voice softens.

“Oh honey. You went through with it.”

Tears form in Jensen’s eyes, although he doesn’t understand why.

“I just… I’m looking for some answers.”

Mrs. Padalecki opens the door wider and ushers Jensen through. He steps into the living room, like stepping into an alternate dimension. His skin prickles, and his hands tingle. Its too familiar and the feeling makes him want to rip his hair out.

“Tea, sweetheart?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She walks over to her stove and puts on an old style teakettle. The kind that whistles. Jensen looks around the house. The wooden table, covered by a simple white tablecloth. The fresh flowers in a yellow vase. The carpets, neatly vacuumed. Family photos adorning the wall. Jared and his, Jensen presumes, siblings.

Fuck. He barely knows Jared at all.

“So… what did you want to talk about, honey?”

Terri Padalecki is sitting down next to Jensen. Her hand, soft and wrinkled, are neatly laced on the table in front of her. Jensen doesn’t make eye contact.

“We met. By accident, I think. And we became friends. We both… heard the recordings. But something doesn’t make sense to me. His… made it seem like we broke up, and I forgot about him first, and he did it back, out of spite. Which is easy enough, sure. But. My recording… its completely different. It _talks_ about Jared’s erasing. Like I was there. Like something horrible happened to Jared, and… this was the way to help.”

Mrs. Padalecki nods thoughtfully. She stands up, grabs the whistling kettle, and doesn’t look at Jensen as she speaks the next words, matter-of-factly.

“It’s the only way Jay would agree to it. He needed to believe you did it first. He’d never do it if he thought you still remembered him.”

Jensen stirs his tea, watching the ripples forming. _The car. The glass._

“I do – I remember _something_. In flashes, not clear but its almost too vivid, like it was painted on my eyelids with watercolor. There was a car. The cold. I… was knocking the window out. “

“I’ll need something stronger than tea for this conversation,” Mrs. Padalecki sighed. She doesn’t move from the chair.

“You keep poking, prodding. You don’t even think about how this is going to affect Jared. He’s been doing so well... It will devastate him. If my son… if you let my son hurt himself again, I swear to God in all his mercy…” Her voice is steady but her knuckles turn white with her grip against her teacup. It must be boiling hot but she holds on tight, eyes furious. She darts her eyes towards Jensen, and spits out, “This conversation is done.”

Jensen stands, pushing his chair in deliberately. He looks at Mrs. Padalecki, older, shaking like a leaf, and something like sympathy washes over him. He knows he should be upset, and defensive, and push her for more. But for some reason, he _understands._ Dejected, Jensen walks towards the door.

“I’m sorry, you know,” Mrs. Padalecki calls out as Jensen opens the door. He stops to listen.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t accept it. Until Jared – I didn’t even think that it could hurt him so much. I’m a woman of God and always tried to do right by my boy. You have to understand that, Jensen. We loved you very much. But – you have to understand.” Terri runs circles with her words and Jensen, on the edge already, starts to feel his heart speed up and rage build in his chest. Terri seemed to choose her words carefully, coming next. 

“Maybe it was God, punishing him for his lifestyle. For... your… lifestyle. And now that Jared’s forgotten, and right with the lord – well – maybe that’s the right choice for both of ya’ll. Even if it feels like a heavy loss.”

Jensen’s heart skips a beat. He grits his teeth. A heavy loss. _A heavy loss_. He doesn’t even know what he’s lost but the emptiness of it, of whatever it was, pushed on his chest. Made it hard to breathe. Made his eyes well up in tears. His body, burning, wants to push her against a wall, throw a Bible into the fire, for even fucking _implying_ that being gay could have caused – what, Jared to hurt himself? To… to try to kill himself?

Jensen stares at her for as long as he could muster and grabs hard onto the doorframe, slamming the door behind him.

“I hope you can forgive me,” she calls after him. He doesn’t look back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Six Month Ago**

_“I never wanted you to find me.”_

The monitors are beeping, whirring. A nurse in green scrubs keeps walking in, adjusting his monitors. Sometimes they draw blood. Jared won’t, can’t, doesn’t look at Jensen. Jensen wants to smack him across the face but instead he kneels next to the bed, shaking fingers touching Jared’s hands, his chest, his neck, his face. Feel the beat of his heart, the steady beeping of the monitors. All intact. Still alive.

“I… I thought you were getting better. I thought. Fuck, Jared. If it wasn’t working, then you should have told me. We could have gone through it toge-“

“Jensen,” Jared’s voice is more forceful as he cuts Jensen off. “What else is there to fucking try? Antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics. They gave me therapy, they gave me sedatives, they put magnets to my brain. And I still…” Jared’s voice, without emotion. Jensen looks into Jared’s eyes, and recoils immediately. Distant and empty.

“I’m tired of being a burden to you.”

Jensen takes his hands from Jared’s, puts them on his head, runs them through his greasy hair. He feels tears forming in his eyes, and he looks away, looks to the side, turns his head. He can’t let Jared see.

“I’m ruining your life. Let me go. Let me go. I’m just… so tired.”

* * *

Jensen sits against Jared’s door, outside his room, hands picking at the carpet of the hospital floor. The girl, the doctor who had been taking care of him, races right past Jensen before she looks up from her paperwork and backtracks to him. Her face softens and she nears him tentatively. Jensen moves over, leaves her space on the floor. She takes the opportunity and scrunches down next to him.

“How is he?” she asks. Jensen knows what she means, what she’s trying to do, but he still scoffs.

“You know damn well how he is. The same.”

“I’m sorry. I am.”

“Don’t need your sorry. Just need a plan.”

They sit in the quiet, and Jensen resumes picking at the carpet, unraviling itchy strands. The hospital’s silent, almost serene at this time. The lights are dimmed, the nursing stations are near empty, no call-lights going off.

“His liver function has improved dramatically. The team wants to discharge him in the next few days.”

Jensen clenches his jaw. Its been days since the team rounding on Jared hinted at this, but this was the first time he heard it directly.

“Where is he going to go?”

“Inpatient psychiatry, probably. Intensive therapy, medication adjustment. A place with routine. It helps a lot of people.”

“Whatever you say.” Jensen replies dryly. Jared is not a lot of people.

“Hey. “She touches Jensen’s shoulder and he looks at her. Her eyes are sympathetic. Not her usual formulaic sympathetic, but tearful. She averts her eyes quickly and digs through her paperwork, taking out a business card. She lowers her voice, leans in to Jensen.

“There is… another option. This doctor, the treatment he offers is… controversial. And illegal in the US.” Jensen taps his fingers against the floor. Her eyes are serious, and she’s putting the business card on the floor, upside down, and pushing it towards Jensen.

“I’ve seen it do things…that our medicine can’t. He works out of Vancouver. Tell him you heard about him from Mary.”

She stands up quickly and dusts off her white coat. She doesn’t look at Jensen again, just power-walks away, eyes back on her papers.

Jensen waits. He picks up the card and squints, reading the faded words in the dark hospital hallway.

Joel Barish, M.D., Ph.D.

LACUNA, LTD Vancouver Branch

He doesn’t hesitate.

He can’t stand another day of looking at Jared’s hopeless eyes.

He can’t stand the accusing looks Jared’s family keeps shooting him each time they visit, like Jared would be okay if only Jensen wasn’t in his life.

He can’t stand not being able to fucking do anything.

He has to do _something._

Two in the morning, in the hallway of a quiet hospital, Jensen stands up and paces the guest area, phone glued to his ear. There was no way that someone was going to pick up the phone at this hour.

“Hello?” a gravely voice answered. There’s no hint of sleep in it and Jensen almost recoils, barely catching his phone. He brings it back up to his earl, but stays silent, just for a split second.

“How did you get this number?” The voice doesn’t sound accusatory, simply inquisitive. Jensen finds his voice, although its weak, raspy.

“Uh. Mary. A woman named Mary told me… about you.”

“…I see. If you give me your email, I’ll send you the information. You know my phone number if you’re interested.”

Before Jensen could respond, the line does dead. He wanders back over to Jared’s room and lets his back slide down the wall. He continues to stare at the card, turning its hard edges against his fingers.

* * *

“How does this work?”

Barish smiles and stands up, begins pacing his office as if looking for the right words,

“Mr. Ackles – imagine a world where you don’t need years of therapy. Where your loved one doesn’t have to wake up screaming from their nightmares. Its simple – we just take them back. Back before the car accident that gave someone PTSD. Back before they were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Back before their,” Barish stops and looks hard at Jensen, “Suicide attempt. Imagine a world where you can, in a way, turn back time. That’s what I offer, Mr. Ackles. And from what I see – “ Barish picks up the packet on his desk, a folder clearly labeled with Jared’s name, and leafs through it theatrically.

“Mr. Padalecki is an ideal candidate. He has this suicide attempt and the endless, painful tries at therapy. A man that doesn’t remember an attempt, remember trying all these different failures – his brain doesn’t believe he’s incurable. The brain believes he deserves to be saved.”

Jensen’s eyes dart around the room, enough to avoid making eye contact, enough to prevent Barish from seeing the tears that were rapidly forming in the corners of Jensen’s eyes. He grips the chair a little tighter and clears his voice.

“That – there must be a catch. This – this procedure isn’t legal for a reason, right?”

Barish slams Jared’s file on his desk hard and continues pacing, placing his arms behind his back and staring at the floor.

“If you mean those IDIOTS at the American Medical Association don’t,” he air quotes, “Approve”, then yes, you’re right. Sure, sure – there’s some, SOME ethical debate about causing ‘brain damage’. Like, say, if this technology got into the wrong hands and you make a serial killer forget about their murders, are they still guilty? If you erase the memories of an abusive parent about ever having a child, is that parent no longer an abuser? But who am I, “ Barish flourished again, “To decide who decides to suffer? A drug addict can’t ever get their child back if I erase all their memories of ever injecting in the first place – but they get clean. And they live.”

Jensen nods slowly, though the knot in his throat and the burning in his cheeks don’t dissipate. Barish induces a visceral reaction in him, like seeing something dirty that he was never supposed to see, and he fights through it. How can anyone trust this man? Jensen’s mind flashes back to the young doctor, Mary, and temporarily feels placated. If she trusted him… well. He has to give this a chance.

What other choice does he have?

“You must get patients all the time that – have lost all hope. That don’t want to get better.”

“We do.

“So... so do you just come into their house and put them out?”

“Hmm. No, no. The goal is to disrupt the natural axonal connections of the brain as little as possible. I can’t erase years; the brain is an intricate network, so try to disrupt a continuous timeline and they may forget how to read, or talk. Memories are linked like that. But. But if you pull on one thread in a sweater, the whole thing unravels. For Mr. Padalecki, we need to find that thread. The one connecting thing that links to his depression. Sometimes its an event. Sometimes it’s a person.” 

Jensen swallows hard. “A person…” he repeats dryly.

Barish stops pacing and sits down in front of his large, oaken desk and looks directly into Jensen’s eyes, unblinking.

“I think we both know the common thread here, Mr. Ackles.”

* * *

Danni rubs Jensen’s back as he clasps his hands around his head, hot tears streaming from his eyes. This is one of the first nights he’s spent away from the hospital and, after calling Chad a million times and softly implying that he may have found a way to help Jared, he made his way back home, turned off all the lights, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and wept.

Danni, ever the present and calming angel in his life, was over not too long after.

Jensen almost wants to whimper, unable to control the hot tears in his eyes, the lack of air in the room, the shaking of his hands.

“God – Danni, - god, I think Barish is right. I think – I fucking did this to him. God, I almost…I almost kill – killed” the words cannot come out and Jensen places a firm hand over his mouth to prevent himself from gasping out, from whaling. He remembered all too well. Thanksgiving with Padalecki. Jared’s hurt, doe-like eyes when he gritted through his teeth that he had no fucking interest in coming out after the show was over. The boiling anger, simmering jealousy, every time Jared got a little too close, laughed a little too much with another man.

“I’m – I’m fucking toxic, Danni – “ Jensen groans out. She continues to rub his back, saying nothing.

“Jensen, please… don’t take this the wrong way, but – I don’t think Jared is the only one that needs help. What choice did you have about… about your relationship? The executives made it clear to both of you. It was career suicide. All Jared ever wanted was to act –why are you blaming yourself for trying to protect him?”

Jensen nods absently, considering the words that have been spoken to both of them as the show was ending. The roundabout way Kripke tried to say it, but the message, as always, as it has been since he got to that godforsaken city of Angels, was ‘you’re a nobody. You will lose your job if you come out.’ Everybody in their cast and crew knew about the two of them, supported them, loved them. But outside the world they lived in for the past 3 years? It was a slaughterhouse. 

He thinks back to the first time he brought Jared to his parent’s house. Season one, a few months in, after the big bar fight and they have been inseparable since. Jensen had few close friends in his entire life but the rapidity, the intenseness of suddenly being inseparable sent Jensen for a tailspin. He didn’t even question himself when he brought Jared home to meet his parents. He remembers Jared spouting out jokes. And the hard, hard look his father gave him that made his own smile disappear. That made him put an extra foot between himself and Jared.

“Danni… you know damn well it wasn’t just the job. I was… I am so afraid. And Jared… he suffered for this. This – this is on me.”

Jensen sniffles and hits his thighs with his fists, standing up, brushing Danni’s hands off. His voice changes, hard and determined.

“This can save Jared. And I’ve been selfish for long enough.”

Danneel stays silent, not moving from her position.

* * *

Chad tosses the business card on the table in front of him.

“He’ll never go for this. You fucking know that, right?”

Danni sits across from them, her legs crossed. She’s resting her chin on her fist, deep in thought. Jensen and Chad sit on the couch in the house Jared and Jensen share. The sun is pouring through the blinds. Jensen is steel-eyed.

“Barish has videos. Patient reports. Hard data. His patients are… they actually get better. They forget the thing that… that prevents them from getting better. And therapy starts to work. And medicine works. And they live.”

“He’d rather die than forget you.”

Jensen pauses, wrings his hands. He bites the inside of his cheek. His eyes, red from too many late nights in front of his computer, haven’t produced tears in weeks now.

“Why does it work like this?” Danni breaks the silence.

“Why does he have to forget you, specifically? Can’t he just… forget the attempt? Or the show? Forget someone else? Sandy. This motherfucker?” Danneel gestures towards Chad.

“I don’t – Barish says memories and feelings are anchored to people, places. Jared can’t forget me finding him… in the car, like that. That seems to be the stopping point, the block in his current treatment and therapy. He can’t move past feeling like a burden to me.” Jensen pauses. “No me, no feeling like a burden. No me, no show, he doesn’t lose Sandy, we don’t lose the show, no high profile gay relationship with a costar with the anxiety of coming out to parents or the rest of Hollywood, no suicide attempt. It’s a second chance.”

“So, what, you’re gonna drug him and drag him to Vancouver?”

“No, no, God no. It works better, Barish says, if its their idea. It has to be… willful.”

“Have you spoken to him about this?”

Jensen pauses. Maybe his eyes _could_ still form tears. They burned against his irritated skin and he blinks a few times. He averts his eyes from Danni. _Keep it together._

“I told him I’d find him. After he gets better. We can start over.”

“And if he doesn’t want you? Doesn’t love you again?” Chad’s words are matter-of-fact, no softness in the tone directed at Jensen. A true, hard question. What if? What if he doesn’t love him again? What if this, the past year, was all a fluke?

“Then he’s fucking alive. Then I know he’s alive.” Jensen’s hand darts up to his face to wipe away the tear. He breathes deeply.

“I’ll need your help.”

* * *

Jensen puts his car in park and turns off his headlights. He watches from across the street. Clean lawn, American flag. The lights are on in his childhood bedroom, and he sees a large shadow passing repeatedly in front of the window. Jensen leans his head against the steering wheel, breathes in deeply.

Jensen jerks up as the passenger door opens, and Terri Padalecki climbs inside. Her face is twisted in annoyance.

“Why are you always out here, Jensen?” she asks.

“Mrs. Padalecki, I – “

“You’re gonna unravel everything we’ve worked so hard for. You’re not gonna ruin my son’s life. You better stay away. I mean it.”

“Please,” Jensen feels his voice break, tears form in his eyes. “Please. Could you call me? Or text me? I need to know how he is. I can’t – I just need to know he’s okay.”

“As far as I’m concerned, its none of your business. If it ever was, it sure as hell isn’t anymore.”

“Please – “

“You were coworkers and now its over – leave well enough alone.”

Terri starts to leave the car, but Jensen grabs her quickly. She turns her head back to him, eyes betraying her sadness, spilling quiet tears.“I love him, ma’am. I love him. He loved me. I should have told you – we should have told you and that’s on me, but I’m telling you now. I’d – I’d do anything for him. Give up anything. You have to understand that, you – “ Jensen’s tears dribbled into his mouth and he could feel Jared’s mom shaking underneath his grip, working hard to look away from him, but no longer trying to leave the car.

“ …. No, Jensen. You’ve made your bed. Stay out of my son’s life. I’m serious.” Terri Padalecki forcefully opens Jensen’s car door and rips her sleeve from Jensen’s grip. “I see you here again, I’m calling the police.”

Jensen stares ahead in his San Antonio motel room, TV on re-runs of their show. Tears are rolling down his eyes into his whiskey, and he keeps sipping, the bitter taste numbing his tongue.

Jared looked so young in front of him as Sam, twenty-two, digging a grave on the screen. Jensen, _Dean_ , is egging him on. Jensen’s hands shake, flashes of Jared’s sunken eyes, his wrists tied in that hospital bed. The heaviness, the coldness of his body in that car. Jensen wants to vomit, turn off the TV, wreck this dirty motel, break every glass and every mirror. But he continues to sit, keeps pouring his whiskey, keeps watching these shadows of themselves. So young. Never knowing what life would become for them. Just breathing each other in, falling in love. Every day, a new, beautiful shining new day. Until it wasn’t. 

When the episode is over, he opens his wallet and digs through the cards.

The white card with the man’s phone number.

Jensen takes a deep breath, wipes his eyes, steadies his breath.

“Dr. Barish? I don’t know if you remember me. Its Jensen Ackles. Yes. Yes. I would like to do the procedure.”

* * *

“This is a really bad idea,” Danneel says loudly, pacing in front of Barish and Jensen, strapped to the chair.

“I’m doing this for him.” Jensen responds curtly.

“You’re being selfish. If you forget, and he forgets, then what? Those years are empty, mean nothing?”

“Danni. You know its not like that.”

“Its quite common,” Barish quips in, and Danneel immediately shoots him a glare. He continues. “Though, of course, its easier to avoid someone when you know you have to avoid them.”

“That’s why I have Danneel.” Jensen jokes, but she grimaces.

“I’m just going to let you break my heart again, aren’t I?”

“Danni…”

“Jensen, you know I will always, always let you break my heart. I know you have to do this.”

“I love you, Danni. Truly.” Jensen whispers. She only smiles, her eyes sad.

“I know, Jense. I know.”


	8. Chapter 8

The movers are packing Danni’s stuff into the van when Jared runs up to Jensen’s house. He nods in their direction and hops Jensen’s fence. He stands still, watching Jensen, in the spot he knows he would be, sitting on his boat. It was still early, non yet noon, and he’s sipping on a beer, running his hands over the steering wheel of his boat.

“She moved out?” Jared squeaks out, making Jensen jump. He glances, wild-eyed, in Jared’s direction and stands up.

They don’t move for a second, the air stagnant between them.

“Um.” Jensen puts down his beer and motions for Jared to get onto the boat. The taller man complies.

“Yeah. Yeah. She’s going back to LA.” Jensen chuckles sadly. “She was never going to marry me this time. Or, apparently, last time.”

Jared extends his hand and places it on Jensen’s shoulder.

“We’re both men that make the same mistake twice.”

Jensen raises his eyes and looks into Jared’s. Jared looks like he’s lost weight, dark circles under his eyes, his hair thin and greasy. Jensen was sure he wasn’t a sight himself; he reeked of booze and hadn’t showered in days, just sat his ass day to night on this stupid boat.

Jared sits down next to Jensen, and they let the silence extend between them.

“Its weird. I only met you a few months ago. You were, are, my good friend. And now everywhere I go, everyone I see, I have to keep asking, hey – Do you remember me and Jensen Ackles? Were we in love? I keep asking everyone. They keep looking at me like I’m crazy. Every story I hear about those two people, that Jared, that Jensen, their experiences, it means nothing to me.”

Jensen nods.

“I can never know, never understand what decisions occurred, what those two people talked about or wanted in life,” Jared laughs, combing a hand through his hair, “And honestly, dude, I’m not – I don’t think I want any of this. I don’t. I don’t think I’m interested in men. And… And, I want to ask you – us having been, I don’t know, together, in the past. Does that – does that mean me and you can never be friends?”

Jensen wants to scoff, _not interested in men._ Jensen’s not oblivious, saw those puppy dog eyes that couldn’t keep off him on his boat, the prolonged contact he made when he was showing the photos, Jared’s rage when he was talking about the proposal. 

Jensen looks hard at Jared, takes him in for the first time in a long time. He’s only 25, tall, lean, beautiful. His eyes, deep and sparkling. His words were clearly deeply thought out, careful. A peace offering of sorts. Jared is smiling a little, looking at the ground. His cheeks are pink and this sheepish look makes Jensen’s chest ache.

Jensen climbs off the boat and walks to Jared. Jensen puts his arms around Jared. Jared almost recoils, wild-eyed, but Jensen hugs him closer, until Jared relaxes and placed his nose into his neck. His hands graze Jensen’s back and Jensen brushes his hands against Jared’s hair, a familiar move. Like muscle memory.

“You’re right. You’re right. Its all in the past. None of that matters anymore. If… if you want, we can still be friends. You know, work out. Go on the boat. Or whatever. I don’t – if you don’t feel weird about what happened before. Then, I don’t either.”

Jared pulls away and smiles with his teeth.

“Can’t feel weird about something you can’t remember, right? And hey, if the universes are infinite, and every possibility is a real possibility, its not surprising that two people who spend so much time together fall in love. We get the distinct privilege of getting another universe.” Jared laughs, “A second chance at life, right?”

Jensen averts his eyes, flashes of Jared’s empty eyes on that hospital bed. Terri’s sharp tongue, threats to stay away from her son. Barish – and his words.

It worked. It worked. What a great sacrifice for you, Jensen, but it worked. _We saved his life._

Jensen nods and smacks Jared’s shoulder twice.

“Yeah, buddy. A second chance.”

* * *

When Jensen stops by Jared’s place, the only sounds are metallic clanking. “Jare?” Jensen called, tapping the 6-pack of beer with his hands. He places it down on Jared’s counter and skirts his fingers against the counter. Jensen notes the little orange bottle on the counter and eyeballs it. “Probably shouldn’t be drinking with this,” Jensen whispers to himself, throwing the 6-pack in the refrigerator. Jared groans from the other room and Jensen walks in.

Jared is on the bench, his chest to the ceiling, two 50lb dumbbells in his hands. He is shirtless, chest relatively hairless for such an overall hairy guys, skin smooth. Jensen eyeballs Jared’s happy trail, thick and dark and dipping into Jared’s loose gray sweats, where he ganders a very impressive member, hanging a little to the left. Jensen licks his lips and knocks lightly on the doorframe. Jared grunts out a few more repetitions before hopping up off the bench, grabbing a towel, and going in straight for a hug, basically lifting Jensen from the ground.

“Jense, hey! I’d so fucking happy to see you man – check this all out!” Jared huffs out a few deep breaths and grabs a towel hanging on a newly installed weight rack.

“You look… good, Jared.” Jensen says flatly.

Jared beams.

“I feel good, man! My whole fucking body hurts but the good kind of hurt, you know? I’m fucking pumped.”

“This your – second chance at life?”

Jared scoffs. “Yeah, right man. To be honest I have a date tonight and I don’t know how I’m gonna bring a girl home to this nasty ass house to this nasty ass body,” Jared smacks a tiny lump of skin below his belly button that would barely be passable as a “belly.”

Jensen tenses immediately.

“I thought we had plans tonight.” He states. Jared’s eyes dart away and he laughs awkwardly.

“Dude, I can’t – I can’t hang out with you and watch movies every night. I gotta – I gotta get my life on track. And honestly, I gotta get fucking laid, man.”

Jensen scratches at some pealing paint, looking away from Jared.

“Well – uh. That’s awesome, man. Good – good luck. I’ll see you…” Jensen searches for words, continuing to look at the ground, feet now shuffling backwards slowly until his shoulder hits the wall opposing the room. He can feel Jared’s eyes on him but he can’t bring himself to look up, suddenly nauseated and too hot and sweating through his t-shirt.

“I’ll see you around. Then. Text me, or, let me know when you’re free.”

* * *

“You’re going on a fucking date?” Chad’s face is on his phone. Chad’s eating pizza and sipping beer as Jared shaved his face carefully in front of the sink, white towel around his waist.

“Yeah, dude. I thought you’d be proud.”

“What’s his name?”

“I’m not – her name is Genevieve. I haven’t been laid in fucking forever and I got to thinking, its probably… probably not healthy for me to be spending all that time with Jensen.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You – you both know what happened, right? You find out you were in a long term committed relationship with your incidental neighbor and, what, ya’ll both choose to completely ignore that information?”

Jared puts down his razor and throws up a middle finger to Chad, who throws up his arms in mock shock.

“The way I see it, whoever we were in those situations, whoever we were attracted to, him and I broke up and chose to forget each other. Clearly I was attracted to him because Lacuna did a shit fucking job at erasing him. But I don’t – that doesn’t lock me in to, what, dating him again? Or fucking him? I don’t like dudes.”

Chad raises his eyebrows in recognition and hums knowingly.

“Oh, Jare. This is classic. You freaked out. You got scared and now you’re trying to – what, trick yourself into liking pussy?”

Jared blushes noticeably, but smacks his face with aftershave in an attempt to hide it.

“Chad, you know I’ve always liked pussy. _Loved_ it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You sure fucking loved taking _that_ dude’s thick meaty cock up your ass on the regular. I know that because you never stopped fucking talking about it. So excuse me for being shocked that you have the opportunity for that god-like man to massage your prostate and you’re gonna pursue random pussy.”

“God-like?”

“You’ve looking at him, Jared. I’m straight, not blind.”

“Dude – he doesn’t, I’m not – we’re not interested – we’re, dude, we’re. Okay. Well.… Either way. That’s all in the past. Its even less than that – it never happened in the first place. It’s a new day.” Jared takes out tweezers and pulls out his dick, picking at the few ingrown hairs around where he shaved in the shower. He nudges it to the side, stubbornly half-hard and leaking pre-cum at the thought of Jensen fucking him, and he clears his throat, smacks his dick softly like a bad dog, and replaces the white towel over his waist.

“Timshel, Chad. I am free to make my own decisions. And I make the decision to pursue pussy. Maybe wack pussy. But my choice, nonetheless.”

“Okay Professor Padalecki. Hopefully you have some muscle memory because – and I am not exaggerating – you might not remember how to do anything to a woman. Except disappoint her.”

“Fuck off. Idiot.” Jared laughs and hangs up on Chad. His smile fades as he cleans up his living room, sets out a candle and lays a fuzzy blanket over the futon. He sits down and taps the coffee table in front of him with a few fingers.

* * *

“So – how tall are you?” Genevieve is small with black hair and a big mouth and Jared is almost immediately grateful he swiped right on her on Tinder. He’d straight up skewer this girl and the way she looked at him, that would be fulfilling her dreams.

“You’re just here for a – a what, like a photoshoot?”

She eyeballs him and laughs.

“Um – yeah, like, as an Instagram influencer I often get like, offers from hotels to do little shoots to promote their rooms to my 1.6 million followers. Honestly I’d be a little nervous about meeting someone randomly, like, I am pretty famous but then I saw you and recognized you from, um, you know, Supernatural, and I thought, you know, this guy knows what up, you know?”

Jared laughs and nods enthusiastically, taking a long sip of his beer. She’s drinking a vodka cranberry at this upscale bar. Her skirt is short and her legs are long, thin, go on for days. She looks good. She leans in, letting her black hair tickle his face.

“And honestly – you know, that episode in season 2, with the werewolf girl, I…” she bites her lip and sighs, moving closer to him so her thighs touch his, “If you can fuck me against a wall like that …”

Jared’s spine tingles. He starts to whisper.

“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” He growls. He places a hand around her waist and pulls her off her chair, which she’s more than happy to comply with.

Her hand rubs against his thighs as he drives her to his place, her fingers grazing over his cock and he’s about to lose his fucking mind.

She climbs out of the car and he tosses her over his shoulder, her squealing with glee the whole way in.

He gently lets her down on the futon. She looks around at his mostly-empty house.

“No bed, huh?”

“You’re on it, baby.”

“You’re really not making me want to stay the night here,” she jokes, winking.

“You have a fancy hotel to stay in tonight.”

“For the gram.”

His large hands graze her thighs and grab them, gently nudging them open, and she complies, falling apart in his arms.

She forcefully kisses him on the mouth, tongue working inside his mouth, lips caressing his. He breaks the kiss, and rains hard kisses against her neck, one of his hands being guided by her underneath her blouse. He gently pinches her nipple and hears a tiny moan.

“What do you want, Genevieve?” Jared rasps in her ear. Her, quivering like a leaf underneath his hands with her eyes glazed, only whispers, “Call me Gen.”

Jared immediately lets go, moves his hands and catches his breath. Genevieve sits straight up, pulls her skirt down and fixes her hair.

“Wait, wait, what… what’s wrong? Is it something I said?”

Jared breathes deeply, but his heart is racing, and suddenly looking at this random girl makes him nauseated. For a brief second, he feels absolutely disgusted with himself. Like he’s no better than _Chad._

“No – I. Look, uh, Genevieve, you’re a great girl and I.. I was really excited for this but. I just. I can’t.”

“What the fuck, dude?”

Jared sighs. The impending sense of guilt, of overwhelming fear, of needing to see Jensen, like right now, was washing over him. He could see him, right now, sitting in the dark on his boat…

Jared grabs his phone off the coffee table, the thought of Jensen giving him that coffee table, the two of them building it together…

His fingers are typing into his phone so quickly Genevieve barely has time to sit up and look over his shoulder in confusion.

“What are you doing? Ordering food?”

“I ordered you an Uber. Sorry. Uh. Good luck.”

Genevieve stares at Jared and he raises his eyebrows, motioning towards the door. Genevieve’s eyes open wide and she opens her mouth, as if to say something, but decides against it. She bolts up, fixes her skirt and grabs her purse off the floor.

“Fuck you, freak.” She spits at him as she stops across the room.

She slams the door behind hers and Jared sighs, throwing his head against the back of his futon in exasperation. His cock throbs painfully in his jeans, angry and aching.

“God, I – I couldn’t do it. She was right there. And she said to call her ‘Gen.’ Isn’t that fucked up?”

“That’s disgusting dude,” Chad said, brushing his teeth on FaceTime. Jared was rinsing his mouth with mouthwash, still tasting the girl on his tongue, feeling foreign and wrong in his mouth.

“It felt just like… fucking cheating on Jensen. Does that make sense? That motherfucker Barish clearly didn’t erase things right because my stupid monkey brain won’t let me enjoy a casual, you know, situation.”

“She was hot?”

“Super hot.”

“She was in to it?”

“Basically made a slip-n-slide all the way to my front door.”

“But she wasn’t Jensen.” Chad says, matter-of-factly.

Jared pauses. He pictured Jensen again, sitting on his boat. The day that he took him out on the water for the first time. His skin glistening, the rays hitting each blonde hair, his arms, his calloused hands…

Jared quickly shakes his head. “Its – no. Dude. No. Clearly that Barish idiot didn’t erase like, some subconscious part of me that believes that I have some commitment to this dude. Because there is nothing there now.”

“Mhhm.”

“Fuck off. Idiot. Alright. We’ll talk later.”

* * *

“Jensen, hey, I uh – are you busy or anything right now?” Jared unlocks Jensen’s front door with his spare key and listens carefully to an empty house. He doesn’t hear shuffling, no one playing the guitar, no one blaring the TV.

“Jensen!” Jared calls. He ventures upstairs and knocks lightly on Jensen’s bedroom door. He almost jumps back when he sees a lump of covers moving in Jensen’s bed, and a soft groan emanated from those covers.

Jared gazes around the room, for the first time being able to appreciate that this is the first time he’s ever been to Jensen’s room. The first time he’s ever been to this Jensen’s room, in this house. This was an entirely new experience, not colored by the past. But it didn’t change the pit in Jared’s stomach, and he approached Jensen’s bed, hand out to rest on the lump.

Jensen lay, pillow over his head, sheets in complete disarray. He smells of whiskey. He breathes softly and evenly through his mouth. Even here, he looks lovely. Jared reaches out a hand, if only to run it against the stubble of Jensen’s jaw – but draws back and Jensen turns in the bed and mumbles something, his eyes closed the whole time.

Jared places his hand against Jensen’s bare back.

“Jense, hey. Are you okay?” He makes small, rubbing motions over his smooth skin, and Jensen groans in response.

“Don’t feel good,” he mumbles. Jared reaches out his other hand, tentative, and runs it through Jensen’s hair, gently, lightly scratching his scalp.

“What doesn’t feel good?” Jared asks, settling his weight more comfortably onto Jensen’s bed, as his turn left a good spot for him to settle in.

Jensen doesn’t answer and Jared pauses his hands and takes a moment to feel the man underneath them. His fingers started to tingle.

He grazes one hand over Jensen’s bare right shoulder, and, as if the most natural thought in the world, lays down on his right side, big-spooning Jensen. He lays on top of the blanket, resting body just a few inches away from him. He places his head on top of the pillow. Hm. Jensen liked firm pillows. Predictable enough.

Jensen doesn’t move and Jared inches a little closer, his lips now almost resting at the nape of Jensen’s neck. He takes his arm and gently lets his fingertips drag over the bicep, dip over his chest. He embrace the older man, just traces the trajectory of the hug with fingertips, breaths becoming more and more shallow with each repetition.

A few turns in and, quickly like he’s been training for it, Jensen grabs Jared’s hand, enough to startle him and make him almost fall out of the bed. He places Jared’s hand underneath his cheek and, maybe in his sleep, maybe on purpose, starts to give soft, featherlike kisses to the palm of Jared’s hand.

Jared’s pulse skyrockets and he starts to blush, desire making its way to his groin. He tries to control himself, not to hug Jensen tight and grind right into him. But he’s... he’s sleeping. This is all wrong.

“… Missed you,” Jensen whispers into Jared’s hand. He feels his lips against the skin and known his heart is beating a million times a minute.

“Jensen, I – “ Jensen’s body jerks and wild, green eyes and pink cheeks are facing Jared, mouth agape. Jensen grabs at his covers and all but pushes Jared out of bed, suddenly shocked and embarrassed and hiding his hands behind his back.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Jensen growled, not making eye contact with Jared.

“I just – stopped by to chat, hang out maybe.”

“You need to fucking leave.”

“But – Jensen, I – “

“Hey, uh. Jay, I’d appreciate it if you call or text me before coming over like that.”

“Oh.” Jared says. 

“This isn’t what friends do.” Jensen adds, words sharp.

He’s right, of course. Jared doesn’t know what went through his head. He pushed away his Tinder date, he came over to his friend’s house in the middle of the night, he fucking… spooned the man. For god’s sake.

“… Why did you drink so much tonight?”

Jensen glares at Jared.

“What are you still doing here? Don’t you need to go get laid?”

Jared sighs and bridges the distance between them.

“Look, man… I was being a dick. I realized I’d rather spend time with you. I’m sorry for ditching you tonight. I know we agreed that… what happened then doesn’t affect us now, but it still scared me.”

The tension in Jensen’s stance loosens and he lets out a deep breath.

“I know, man. I’m sorry. Me too.”

“But. If I’m honest. Not to sound cheesy. But I have the most fun… when I’m with you. Can’t imagine my life without you.”

Jensen relaxes.

“… You wanna head downstairs and watch a movie?”

Jared only nods. 

* * *

“Mr. Wesson! Please come in.”

The nurse waved Jared forward and he stood from the waiting room, shooting an uncomfortable smile towards the other patron. The other patient, an older man, quickly averts his eyes. 

It doesn't look that much different than those psychiatrist offices on TV. There was a nice, comfortable chair, calming music, walls covered with neutral paintings of flowers. 

The woman behind the wooden desk doesn’t look up at him, scribbling something on a peace of paper, before propping the glasses up her nose and motioning for him to sit down.

Jared chooses the comfortable chair, although it was clearly not built for someone of his stature, and his knees end up being higher than his hips.

She glances up, and immediately her mouth drops.

“…You.” She breathes. Jared scrutinizes her carefully. He searches his mind, rattles his brain around, but can’t seem to place her – only that she’s familiar.

“This – this said you’re Mr. Wesson.”

“I gave them a fake name.”

“Oh.” Quickly, she adds, “With a fake name we can’t bill your insurance.”

“I’m paying out of pocket.”

Mary remains motionless, but clears her throat.

“You’re here for an intake appointment.”

“I am.”

“How….. How are you doing?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Jared asserts, leaning his elbows against his knees.

“I.. I shouldn’t.”

“Look,” Jared appeals. “No one wants to talk to me about it. And the one person who I feel would – Jensen – he doesn’t remember a whole lot.”

Mary looks shell-shocked.

“Jensen... doesn’t…?”

“He went to Barish too. We’re both navigating things blind. And – and that’s okay. If things were bad enough for me – for me to – well. You know. I’m glad that I am where I am now. But I need answers.”

Mary closes her eyes and breathes deeply.

“You were my patient. I suppose you have a right to know – if that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Mary appears to gather her thoughts - but the words flow freely, like she's been rehearsing them for some time. Like she was expecting him to walk into her office any day now. 

“When I was younger, I worked as an assistant for this professor that invented the erasing technique. He used it mostly for superficial things - you know, breakups, failures, fighters, that sort of thing. Joel – Dr. Barish – was one of the people that utilized this service. In the end, he ended up remembering a lot of what was supposed to be erased; and became fascinated with the technology. He went to medical school, got his MD/PhD and took it to a whole new level. If we have the power to erase a bad breakup, or to soothe the grieving soul of someone who experienced a loss, why not go beyond this? Why not erase the very things that haunt and destroy people? Why not erase drug addiction, and sexual abuse, and PTSD? Imagine how many people live in this world, constantly haunted by their experiences – with none of our medical therapies working. His work is – inspired. And, if I may add,” Mary hits the table lightly with her palm, “Way ahead of its time. I’m giving you this context, Jared, so you can understand… Why I suggested this for you.”

“From what Jensen told me… your show ended, and you felt directionless and lost. The two of you didn’t leave Canada for a while. You disagreed on what to do next, and you fell into a deep depression. He said – he said you did reach out for help, and you tried everything. With each attempt, you became more closed off, more quiet. Then one weekend, you took Jensen for a skiing trip – he said you seemed so happy, and it seemed like things were finally turning around. Then, that morning, he couldn’t find you. He trudged outside to see your car gone. He said he tracked your phone to a mile or so out outside your home – it looks like you had slept in the car. He saw you passed out in the driver seat. He said he broke the window, pulled you best he could. There was an empty bottle of vodka and an empty bottle of Tylenol next to you. You were still breathing.”

Jared nods thoughtfully.

He expected to feel _something._ But this all sounded like a foreign story. Not something that happened to him. Not something that he was capable of.

Even so, a pang of pity spread in his chest, for Jensen.

What it must have been like, to find someone you love like that…

“You went into liver failure from the Tylenol overdose. It was touch and go for a _while._ No one knew if you were going to wake up. We were fast-tracking you to get a transplant – but your body got better. Miraculously.” Mary pauses.

“But then you woke up… and you started refusing things. You stopped eating. It was – we had to put you on an involuntary hold. Basically meaning you were not able to make your own medical decisions, in context of acute suicidality. We – had to restrain you from pulling out your IVs. We had to feed you through a tube down your nose. Your body was alive, but you…” Jared shoots his head up to watch Mary.

She must have seen so many people like him, doing what she does.

And yet, there are tears in her eyes and she’s looking at him so earnestly, like she’s known him his whole life.

“You had given up. Your family, Jensen, they were – absolutely devastated. Desperate.”

“How did… do you know how Jensen convinced me to go through with it?”

Mary laughs quietly to herself, affection apparent in her voice.

“He said he’d get you out of the hospital. That it would help – if its doesn’t, you could try again and succeed. If it did help, he’d find you again.”

Mary looks down at her desk, smile spread on her face.

“And he did find you. I’m so happy. I’m happy that you get to be together again.”

Jared twists his face, thoughtful.

“Jensen and I aren’t together.” He asserts. Mary looks at him, eyebrows raised, confusion in her eyes.

“Why… why wouldn’t you be together?”

Jared sighs and leans back in the chair.

Might as well get some therapy out of this.

“I don’t know. It freaks me out – that he and I have this grand history together that neither one of us remembers. Its so much pressure – and a reminder of what I’ve lost. Three years of my life,” Jared snaps his fingers, “Poof. Sure, I’m attracted to him – but how much of that is a subconscious part of that ‘remembers,’ and how much of it is real, and based on connection, and sincere? I’m different now, clearly, and so is he. So does the me now have feelings for the Jensen now? Or is it all clouded by these old, inaccurate versions of us? Does any of that make sense?”

Mary nods thoughtfully, tapping a pen against her lips.

“I don’t know if I’d put it like that.”

“Hm?”

“I wonder,” she continues, “If you knew then, when you re-met Jensen, what you know now, would you have done it any different?”

Jared places his chin in his hands and thinks back to meeting Jensen.

Tripping all over himself to get those green eyes on him.

Keeping in step next to the man, moving like a gazelle on that trail, exhilarated, admiring.

The two of them, sharing beer, steak, laughing together, watching movies together….

Warmth spreads through Jared’s chest and he smiles inadvertently. 

“You’re lucky, you know.” Mary confesses. “What a beautiful thing, to fall in love with someone all over again.”

* * *

“This is a birthday present.” Jared’s eyes shine as he flashes two plane tickets to Jensen. Jensen coughs, almost spitting out his beer.

“My birthday is in May,” Jensen protests, but Jared shushes him.

“It’s a birthday present for _me.”_

Jensen couldn’t argue with _that._

Just a week later, they’re on the plane – and the palm trees, crisp air, crowded streets almost sends Jensen for a tailspin.

Back in Southern California – with Jared. Jensen tentatively looks at Jared, whose face is alight with wonder at the surroundings. Jensen holds his breath.

This is all such a bad idea.

Barish’s voice rings clear in Jensen’s head. _‘If you trigger something in him, if you pull just on the right string – the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.’_

In the movies, its always revisiting previous places, seeing previous people that trigger these memories. And Jensen knows all too well how much he could lose, how much Jared could lose, if that happens here.

He’s tense – almost more so when Jared waves the keys of their rental car and it’s a goddamn Mustang convertible. Ridiculous. He wants to grumble, but the joy on Jared’s face keeps him from complaining.

Instead, he lets the California sun form new freckles on his nose as Jared keeps the top down, belting out Taylor Swifts songs much to Jensen’s dismay. Especially when he can’t help but tap his foot, stupid smile unintentionally on his face as he gazes out on the horizon. 

“You’re joking.”

Jared proudly opens his arms and gestures towards the hotel

Rather, a hotel and wine yard. In Temecula.

“I’m gonna get cultured – step 1. Wine tasting. You can start wine tasting, what, at noon?” Jared waves a handful of tickets in front of Jensen’s face and he grabs at them. Wine tasting tickets indeed. At every winery within a 5 block radius. Which was… many.

When they approach the tasting bar, a flash of recognition passes the eyes of the woman serving them, and she grins wide.

“Wow, what an honor! The Supernatural boys! You guys have just disappeared off the face of the planet, huh?” Jared and Jensen exchange a quick look. Sure, neither one of them had any idea what she was talking about – but even so; Jared’s ego flowered in his chest. Not only was he recognizable, and liked, but even to random strangers, him and Jensen are a pair. Jared’s fingers tingle and he fights the impulse to take the other’s man’s hand in his.

 _Not that kind of pair,_ Jared scolds himself.

“Lets make this a game,” Jared suggests, taking the glass, tiny in his large hands, and elegantly swirling the wine around. He’s gotta let it _breathe._

“We each get a taste – and then we guess three things that they put on the label. Like… hints of chocolate, or wood, or whatever.”

Jensen grins.

“Oh, I’m gonna kick your ass at this.”

Jared swirls the glass, first, lifting his chin high, and lets the wine hit his pallet before changing into a British accent.

“Hm, yes, I taste a hint of… cardamom… cherries…. And smoke.”

“You’re full of shit. That sounds disgusting.”

“Oh, you think you’re so smart? You try it.”

Jared thrusts the tiny glass to Jensen’s hand.

His mouth dries when he sees Jensen’s lips touch the glass the same place that his did.

He doesn’t know why something that stupid, that simple, sends his heart racing.

_Fucking idiot. You let the wine breathe. You let it flower._

“Jared?” Jared snaps back to reality to meet a pair of concerned eyes on him.

“Well – what do you think?” Jared recoups, and Jensen makes a show of smacking his lips and placing a fist under his chin.

“I’m tasting – hmm, some chocolate, some cinnamon and…” Jensen smacks his lips a few more times, “What is that? Ass?”

Jared chortles.

“That must be from my backwash.”

The two men start laughing, and everything feels light.

* * *

Jared stares up at the ceiling. Jensen is three feet away from him, on the other queen bed, looking at him.

Jensen realizes almost too late that he’s a little drunk, and probably shouldn’t say what he’s about to say.

But.

“Jared – I have to tell you something.”

Jared licks his lips and turns his body to face Jensen, eyes gentle. Jensen feels his heart quicken.

“I know you said that you want to… be friends. That we shouldn’t let this – this history that neither one of us really knows the gravity of – affect our relationship. And. And I agree with that – but – “

Jared watches him, his heart feeling almost too big in his chest. Jensen’s stammering. This breathtaking man, eyes so green they look fake, full lips, angled jaw, calloused hands, so beautiful that people stop to stare no matter where they go, and this same man is red in the face, unable to make eye contact with him, picking at his fingers like he’s _nervous._

Mary was right.

What a beautiful thing to fall in love with someone all over again.

What a beautiful thing to fall in love with someone, for the first time.

For him.

“What I’m trying to say is – I don’t know who you were then. But I know who you are now. And.”

Jared gets up from his bed and gets on his knees, so he could be face to face with Jensen. Jensen’s eyes grow wide, and he props himself up on his elbows.

Jared reaches his hands out, cupping Jensen’s face, like he’s done it a hundred times before. His heart jumps into his throat, but he’s never been so sure of anything – even the shocked green eyes staring back at his don’t deter him.

“Keep going,” Jared requests, and Jensen stammers briefly before finding his words again.

“I – I have feelings for you. Strong feelings. And if – if you want to reject them, do, and then I’ll move on, but I felt like I had to tell you, Jay, I –“

“Took your sweet time, huh?” Jared teases. Jensen’s about to protest, but Jared leans forward, lips meeting. Although dry, chaste, Jensen’s lips feel like they’re on fire, like every nerve in his body has suddenly come alive – he doesn’t wait for Jared to dip back in before his own hands are on the younger man’s face, and he kisses him hard, thrusts his tongue into his mouth, consuming him, hungry for him. Wanting, wanting for _so long._

Jensen’s lip quivers against Jared's, and Jared tastes salt, salt and hot air and Jensen’s coconut shampoo and the colors erupt behind his eyes. His lips are soft and pliable, finally finally showing some instability, some weakness, and Jared is ravenous. His tongue grazes the inside of Jensen’s pink mouth, teeth barely brushing against his bottom lip. Voluptuous, satin, beautiful, unbelievable – _familiar._

The kiss could have lasted for minutes, hours, but it still wouldn’t have been enough. Especially not when Jared broke it and opened his eyes only to see Jensen flutter open those beautiful butterfly eyelashes and pout his shiny, spit-slicked lips. It's simultaneously the cutest and most arousing image Jared had ever seen, and he subconsciously ‘Click!’-ed with his mental camera. _This one, I’m never forgetting. No matter fucking what._

Jensen wraps his arms around Jared, suddenly vulnerable and needy, and Jared takes the hint, using his arms to move Jensen over to the center of the bed so he could join him, so they could minimize the space between them, because in that moment even a centimeter between their bodies was way too much.

If Jensen doesn’t make contact with Jared’s skin in one fucking second, he’ll just die. The air between them, electric, Jensen shoves his hands under Jared’s shirt, the younger man reacting with a quick breath in.

Jensen does’t stop kissing him, no, just lets his hands get to know this man, trace the outline of his ribs _He’s thinner now_ his brain offers unhelpfully. _Shut up_ Jensen tells himself, and nudges the shirt higher. Jared complies, lifting his arms, and Jensen pulls it over his head.

A part of him wants to drink the younger man in. The smoothness of his skin. His broad shoulders, hard chest. He’s bigger than him, stronger, and its such a fucking turn on Jensen can barely think straight. But he doesn’t let himself think too much, dives in, lets his body do what it knows best. His teeth graze the part of Jared’s neck that makes him let out a beautiful, exasperated whine and grip into Jensen’s shoulder, and he smiles against the younger man’s burning skin.

Nibbling his neck, Jensen makes quick work of Jared’s belt and relieves the pressure of his cock uncomfortably pressed against the zipper of his pants. Jared all but mewls at his member being set free, himself re-focusing and getting the older man undressed – Jensen isn’t playing fair, and he knows it. He pushes Jensen down, head hitting the pillow, and swings his hips on top to pin him.

Jared pants and searches Jensen’s face – pink, lips wet and open, eyes hazy and wild. Jensen’s hands are grabbing at him, fingers trailing up his back, back to his cock – just the touch of Jensen’s fingers through his underwear makes him jerk up; the sensitivity of his dick has been cranked up to 11 and this might be _too much_ for the first time…

Jared re-focuses – he can feel Jensen, rock hard under him, and focuses his energy there, grinding against Jensen’s erection, sending Jensen into a flurry of gasps.

Jared makes his way down until he’s face level with Jensen's crotch. Jensen leans forward, panic in his eyes, but Jared pays no mind – he’s unbuttoning the older man’s pants, and without hesitation pulls his throbbing cock out. Standing tall and proud, leaking pre-cum, Jensen has the prettiest dick Jared’s ever seen – which tracks.

Jensen tries to jerk out of Jared’s grip but Jared only smirks. He places his lips against his throbbing glans, letting his lips touch it as he spoke.

“Did you bring anything?”

Jensen learns forward, incredulous.

“Did I – like lube? What the fuck, Jared, how was I supposed to know – “

“I’m kidding, moron,” Jared teases. With that, he wraps his lips around Jensen’s tip, and the older man hits the bed, arching his back.

“Fuck – Jay –“

“Mmm.” Jared hums against Jensen’s dick, tongue exploring the head of his cock, lapping up the sweet beads of pre-cum. This was doing unimaginable things to Jared; he technically didn’t even know what he was doing, but felt himself bob down, taking the whole length, some-fucking-how down his throat, and Jensen moans so beautifully above him that Jared doesn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t stop.

Once the shaft is wet enough, he wraps a hand around the base, and strokes in time, Jensen writhing and pleading on the bed, putty in Jared’s capable hands.

Jensen's hips jerk upward, shoving himself deeper into Jared's throat, making him almost gag - Jared can tell Jensen's close, hips rutting so desperately, dick hardening in his mouth and, oh god.

Jensen is going to cum in his mouth.

Jared has to breathe out deeply, too overwhelmed with how ridiculously _hot_ that is, before Jensen thrusts his hands into Jared's hair, and, pulling gently, enough to elicit a moan from Jared, cums nice and deep down his throat. 

Jared swallows gratefully. 

Still out of breath, Jensen motions toward Jared, cock tenting his underwear.

“Jen, you don’t have to…”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jensen looks incredulously and pulls himself up, making Jared stand up.

“I want you to look at me.”

Jared gulps, heart in his throat, his brain absolutely, positively blank.

Jensen gets on his knees in front of him and looks up at Jared, meeting his eyes.

“I’ve wanted to know, so long now, how you taste…” Jensen croons, keeping his eyes on Jareds as his hands pulled down the man’s underwear, revealing the largest cock he’s ever seen. Jensen feels himself salivate and takes it gingerly in his hands, like a precious trophy. Jared moans at just this touch and Jensen grins.

“Making me wait for this. Fucking idiot. Could have been three months of this if you weren’t so fucking stubborn.” Jensen wraps his hand around the base and starts to pump, slowly at first, but speeding his rhythm until Jared’s knees start to shake, gasps spilling from his mouth, so pretty, needing him so much…

“You want me to suck you cock, baby boy? You want me to make you feel good?” Jensen teases, and Jared’s slack mouthed, nodding dumbly as his body continues to shake. He’s basically crying before Jensen grins and darts out his tongue to taste Jared’s pre-cum.

“So good. You taste so good...” Jensen praises, before enveloping Jared’s member with his lips.

Jensen starts slow, tapping Jared fervently so the younger man doesn’t stop looking at him, but each time they meet eyes, Jensen feels Jared tighten, like he’s trying to keep himself from cumming, which only makes Jensen more emboldened. He caresses the tip with his tongue, letting Jared’s dick slide out of his mouth with a wet ‘pop.’ Jared groans and looks desperately to Jensen, and Jensen takes that as permission to keep going –

“Jensen, Jen, baby, I’m – “

Jared feels like he’s going to pass out, the release unlike anything he’s ever experienced. Orgasms are _not_ supposed to feel like that – he almost feels sorry for Jensen, because he knows he’s about to cum in his mouth, a lot, and wants to pull him away, but his hips are swaying on their own, fucking into his mouth, and he looks so fucking good, those pretty lips wrapped around his cock, licking him, wanting him…

Jensen grips at Jared’s ass and swallows him whole, the bitter taste coating his tongue and making his head swim.

Jared pulls him up at once and kisses him, tongues intermingling, the tastes of each other in their throats.

When they pull apart, some of the haziness in their eyes has dissipated and the the two grown men, standing half naked, start to laugh.

* * *

The light streams through the curtains, illuminating Jared’s face. He rests in the crook of Jensen’s arm, and Jensen softly scratches at his scalp, brushing through the younger man’s hair.

He’s so… at peace.

This is how things are supposed to be.

“Jensen,” Jared speaks, tentative.

Jensen looks down at the younger man, meeting his eyes.

“If you want this, I want this. Us, I mean. If you don’t – if this is a one off thing, then – “

“Shush,” Jensen implores, placing a finger against Jared’s mouth. He smiles and shakes his head, as if Jared just said the stupidest thing in the world.

“Of course I want this.”

“But… you’re willing to take that risk? Knowing that I – what I put you through, and what I could put you through, again… Its always the risk, you know, that I’ll get sick again. And I don’t want you to have to go through that again…”

“Hey. Hey. Your illness doesn’t make me love you any less – it never will. I want to be there for you. Always. Last time. This time. In whatever next lifetime we have. Don’t ever, ever worry about that.”

Jensen pauses.

“But – are you sure you want to… to try again with me? It was me that… that wanted to hide the fact that we were together, to the world, to our parents. And I haven’t… I haven’t stopped being scared of that.”

Jared scoffs.

“After what we’ve been through? That shits minor league.”

Jensen nods.

Jared grins and lands a quick kiss against Jensen's shoulder. 

"You said you love me..." he says in a sing-song tone. Jensen knows he should be embarrassed, backpedal, but that seems ridiculous. 

Of course he loves Jared. Its a part of his very being, in his bones. He doesn't need memory to know that. 

"I did," Jensen agrees, and Jared bites him playfully. 

"I love you back."

"You better."

Jared embraces Jensen, listening to his heart beating steadily in his chest. 

"Jensen, lets go home." 


	9. Epilogue

Chad’s staring at the two of them.

“You two are back together.” He states, grimacing.

“Technically, we’re together for the first time.” Jensen corrects.

“But yes.” Jared adds.

“Oh no. No no. Jared – “ Chad raises a finger to Jared, but Jared’s already starting to follow him, fluttering his lashes.

“I don’t – I don’t want to hear all this shit again! I’ve heard it! This lovey dovey bullshit! I know he snores! I know about the mole on his ass! If I have to hear it one more time, I’ll fucking die.”

Chad’s face grows serious.

“But… are you guys going to… go back to L.A? And start acting again?”

Jensen and Jared exchange knowing looks and and both shake their heads 'no.'

Jared picks up a letter off his desk and thrusts it towards Chad, who opens it tentatively.

“Dear Jared Padalecki, We are happy to welcome you to University of Texas – Austins for the Class of 2013 Fall Semester…. Jared, holy shit, are you going back to school?”

Jared beams up at him, dimples full and flashing and Chad can’t help but smile back.

“Its really something – to get a second chance at life.” Jared postulates, and he intertwines his hand with Jensen, who gazes at him with pride.

Jensen gazes back at the man next to him.

To meet someone like Jared again. To fall in love with him for a second time.

To have a chance to live a different life, separate life, where they don't have to hide. 

Where they could be anyone they want to be. 

Jensen smiles. 

He's exactly where he wants to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This story started off as something a lot more simple - a superficial fight, bitterness and pettiness leading the boys to forget each other - which was fine; it made an engaging enough story.  
> But I didn't finish it - and got older - and suddenly love and forgiveness and sacrifice meant something different. From there, Jared's public struggle with mental illness, my own, and my medical training lead into this plot line. With the emerging evidence of dissociative drugs such as ketamine or psilocybin being effective treatments for refractory depression, I felt like I had to play with the the morals of this theoretical machine, which ended up, for me, a more satisfying story.   
> In the end, there are options, and people can get better. No matter what you're going through, there's always a way, and we all deserve second chances. 
> 
> That said - this baby has been on my computer for 5 years, and its cathartic to finally let it go and put it out there, even though its not perfect!  
> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
